Warp wrote:
>   Ok, maybe I know the how: Maybe they travel to Canada first, and then
> they go to the US and never leave. Plausible.

Yep. Or they come visit relatives on a valid visa and just let the visa 
expire and never go home.

>>>   If a very significant percentage of illegal immigrants tend to be central
>>> Americans, it makes only sense to scrutinize them more closely.
> 
>> The goal is to have nobody innocent hassled by the government here.
> 
>   Does that apply to all crimes, or only illegal immigration? Why?

All crimes. Note that it's not "hassle" if you actually have reason to 
suspect someone of a crime. If you find a dead woman, you question the 
husband and boss and etc.  You don't go walking up and down the streets 
stopping everyone and questioning them.

>   How can you compare asking someone's ID to putting someone in prison?

Because that's what happens when you don't have ID. Note that it's not just 
"ID" but "proof of citizenship."  Hell, I'd be surprised if 75% of the 
people in Congress here had actual proof of citizenship where they could get 
to it within 24 hours.

> Aren't you exaggerating a bit here?

That's the problem. I'm probably not.

>   If I started complaining how the stores asking me for my ID is
> discrimination, I would be a complete idiot.

Great. Do you want the stores to ask you for ID when you're *not* buying 
something from them?  When you're just walking down the road, do you want 
every store you pass to ask for your ID?  Or to show them you have enough 
money to buy what they have in their store?

>   Is this comparison far-fetched? Much less far-fetched than comparing
> asking for someone's ID with putting someone in prison.

Lots of people here don't have ID. There's no reason to carry ID if you're 
just out walking around. This country has IDs for specific purposes: A 
driver's license to drive, a social security number to track social security 
tax payments, a passport to pass ports.

>> Because what you're doing is hassling all people of central american 
>> descent, regardless of whether they've done anything wrong. That's by 
>> definition racism. You're treating people differently based on their race, 
>> not their behavior.
> 
>   And the police investigating males in rape cases is sexism, by the same
> logic. 

Only if they investigated *all* males, instead of just the ones who might 
have been in the area, etc.   "Hi, a woman was raped three blocks from here. 
Please come with us until you can prove you didn't do it."

>   So what? Are you saying that nobody should be investigated because they
> might be legal immigrants? Or what is it that you are trying to say? I don't
> get it.

I'm saying nobody should be investigated because of their facial features. 
They should be investigated if there's some reason to believe they committed 
a crime.

We don't let the cops randomly pull over drivers just to make sure they paid 
their insurance and license taxes, either. You actually have to do something 
wrong first.

>   Let's go again with the rape inverstigation: Should the police stop
> investigating people because most of them did not commit the crime? After
> all, you can't distinguish one male from another in this respect. 

But you can. Do you think it's reasonable if someone got raped in a 
neighborhood for the police to go door to door and demand every male in the 
house provide a DNA sample?

If so, then we just disagree. If not, why not?

>   I don't think the solution to the problem of corrupt police officers is
> to make the laws more lenient. Why would it?

No, the solution is to have laws that regulate the behavior of those police 
and punish them when they're corrupt.

>   Is the assumption that a black person is more likely to steal a car than
> a white person based on pure prejudice, or statistics?

It's not even a matter of "stealing cars."  You're a black person in a nice 
neighborhood, so you must be up to no good, so we're going to stop you, make 
you late for where you're going, and possibly arrest you if you give us any 
crap or ask us why we're stopping you.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Linux: Now bringing the quality and usability of
   open source desktop apps to your personal electronics.

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