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On 1-5-2010 19:13, Warp wrote:
> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote:
>> No, but the notion that you can pick someone up because they *look* like
>> an illegal immigrant (which BTW violates the 4th amendment right to
>> protection against unreasonable search/seizure) *is* patently racist.
>
> Why does it have to be racism?
Racism is here used as a general term of judging people by what cultural
group they appear to belong to based on how they look.
> Imagine that a woman is raped, and the police is immediately called,
> and they suspect that the rapist is still in the vicinity. The police
> ought to start questioning suspects they find. Male suspects.
>
> One could argue that only having males as suspects is discrimination,
> that suspects should be equally male and female. But that someone would be
> a complete idiot. It's 99.999% probable that the rapist was a male, rather
> than a woman who raped a woman and was nevertheless mistaken for a man
> (that has probably never happened in the history of mankind). Hence it
> makes sense for the police to only suspect males and leave females off
> the hook. If the police was stupid enough to start detaining females for
> suspicion of raping a woman, they would be wasting valuable resources
> which would be better used in searching for the actual rapist. After all,
> law enforcement has only very limited resources to solve crimes.
>
> Likewise with illegal immigration: The vast majority of illegal immigrants
> don't look like locals. Hence it only makes sense to prioritize the scarce
> resources law enforcement has and concentrate on people who don't look like
> locals. This is not racism. This is practicality. Questioning people equally
> is only going to waste resources, which wastes taxpayers' money, and causes
> less crimes to be stopped.
There is another way that even takes less time and is not illegal
because of various international laws: don't question people unless you
have a serious reason to believe that they are illegal (or you are
questioning them anyway because of a non-related suspicion or check).
Frankly I find your reasoning that "I know there is an illegal immigrant
in this country, so I have to check everybody that looks like he might
be it" quite disturbing. But that is not unusual.
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John VanSickle wrote:
> The same principle applies here to the immigration law. If you don't
> want your children to suffer the indirect consequences of your
> lawbreaking, then don't break the law.
You miss my point. Where would you deport them to?
> Believe it or not, there is no basic right to remain in the country.
I think you'll find that there is such a right for *citizens.*
> you are here in violation of our laws, you must go.
And what law did the children break?
> The fact that your children are lawfully here does not alter this.
You've missed the point. They want to make it such that your children are
*not* lawfully here.
> You have no lawful recourse but to leave.
Sure.
> You can take your kids with you or you can leave them behind.
You're missing the point. The nutcases want to send the children out also.
It's not up to the parents whether to take the children. They're talking
about deporting the children who *are* legal US citizens who never broke the
law.
Sure, it
> is not their fault that you broke the law, but if that didn't stop you
> from breaking the law, why should it stop us from enforcing it?
>
> Regards,
> John
--
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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Jim Henderson wrote:
> I don't think that this is what Darren was saying, but rather that the
> Arizona law opens the potential for someone who *is* a legal citizen but
> isn't carrying their papers on them to be deported.
No. I'm saying that some people want to pass a law to deport someone who
*is* a legal citizen and who *is* carrying their passport to be deported
because they were born of illegal immigrants.
> But the idea behind
> deporting someone to their country of origin is not valid when their
> country of origin *is* in fact the US.
Bingo.
--
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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Warp wrote:
> Likewise with illegal immigration: The vast majority of illegal immigrants
> don't look like locals.
Sure they do. We have a huge population of Americans of Mexican descent
here, as well as a whole raft of people descended from the Mexicans who were
here before the USA took over California.
There are large areas of the city where Americans who look like they might
be Mexican outnumber Americans who look like they might be British.
This is the problem. It's not that we'll catch illegal immigrants. It's that
the police will hassle Americans who look Mexican and not hassle the
Americans who look British.
Or to put it another way, jump back 180 years. Pass a law in the northern
part of the USA saying everyone had to prove they aren't an escaped slave.
Do you think there's any way that wouldn't be considered a racist law today?
Do you think there's any chance you wouldn't wind up locking up a whole lot
more innocent black people than innocent white people?
--
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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Warp wrote:
> 3%. But I don't understand what that has to do with anything. It still
> doesn't change the fact that immigrants typically tend to look distinctively
> different from natives.
In *your* country, maybe. In the USA, *everyone* looks like an immigrant.
> I'm pretty sure that a significant percentage of illegal immigrants in
> the US can be distinguished by their looks.
No. A lot of *legal* immigrants might be distinguished by their looks.
Even so, given it's possible that someone is a legal citizen and also a
child of illegal immigrants, you can't distinguish someone by their looks.
> You can call it racism if you want. That will not change the facts.
People aren't worried about harassing the illegal immigrants unnecessarily.
They're worried about harassing the legal citizens and residents unnecessarily.
--
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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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
> > I don't think that this is what Darren was saying, but rather that the
> > Arizona law opens the potential for someone who *is* a legal citizen but
> > isn't carrying their papers on them to be deported.
> No. I'm saying that some people want to pass a law to deport someone who
> *is* a legal citizen and who *is* carrying their passport to be deported
> because they were born of illegal immigrants.
If someone commits a crime which is so serious to deserve tens of years
of prison, it might, in fact, be more practical if he was thrown out of
the country because that would become cheaper. Such a criminal does not
deserve the protection of society (regardless of what his citizenship
status is).
Of course there are practical problems to this as well, which would make
the practice impossible: If someone is a citizen, it usually means he does
not have citizenship of any other country, so where are you going to deport
him to? You can't just dump him to another country (even if his parents are
from that country) if he isn't a citizen of that country. He would
effectively become a refugee, which might not be accepted by that country
because the reasons of him being a refugee are not acceptable (namely, he
was kicked out of his own country because of a serious crime he committed).
If country A started dumping its own criminal citizens to country B, which
has its own immigration laws and policies, it would probably cause a political
conflict.
So countries are stuck with their own citizens, no matter what kind of
criminal monsters they might be. The can't dump them somewhere else.
A cynic could say "the government granted him citizenship, the government
is stuck with him, so it just has to suck it up".
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > 3%. But I don't understand what that has to do with anything. It still
> > doesn't change the fact that immigrants typically tend to look distinctively
> > different from natives.
> In *your* country, maybe. In the USA, *everyone* looks like an immigrant.
You are missing the point. If I have understood correctly, the vast
majority of illegal immigrants in the US tend to look like central Americans,
for obvious reasons.
If a very significant percentage of illegal immigrants tend to be central
Americans, it makes only sense to scrutinize them more closely.
> > I'm pretty sure that a significant percentage of illegal immigrants in
> > the US can be distinguished by their looks.
> No. A lot of *legal* immigrants might be distinguished by their looks.
What does that have to do with anything? What matters is where the illegal
immigrants are coming from, not where the legal ones are. If 90% of illegal
immigrants are Mexicans, then the immigration officers should concentrate
their resources on Mexicans. It wouldn't make sense for them to distribute
their scarce resources on everybody if 90% of illegals are Mexicans.
> Even so, given it's possible that someone is a legal citizen and also a
> child of illegal immigrants, you can't distinguish someone by their looks.
That sentence doesn't make any sense.
> > You can call it racism if you want. That will not change the facts.
> People aren't worried about harassing the illegal immigrants unnecessarily.
> They're worried about harassing the legal citizens and residents unnecessarily.
Stopping crime sometimes means that innocent people are questioned. That's
something we have to live with.
Or are you saying that criminals should not be tracked down because doing
so might bother some innocent people?
Stop being naive and look at the harsh reality of the world: Criminals are
scumbags, and because of them innocent people have to sometimes endure some
scrutiny. It sucks, but if we want to catch the criminals we sometimes just
have to suck it up. As long as there's crime, innocent people will have to
suffer.
--
- Warp
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andrel <byt### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> On 1-5-2010 19:13, Warp wrote:
> > Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >> No, but the notion that you can pick someone up because they *look* like
> >> an illegal immigrant (which BTW violates the 4th amendment right to
> >> protection against unreasonable search/seizure) *is* patently racist.
> >
> > Why does it have to be racism?
> Racism is here used as a general term of judging people by what cultural
> group they appear to belong to based on how they look.
I understand "juding" in official terms to mean to convict someone of a
crime. If people are convicted there solely because of how they look, then
yes, that would be racism. Is that so?
The colloqualism "to judge" which means to have a prejudiced opinion
about someone is not necessarily the same thing as the profiling work that
law enforcement needs to do by necessity in order to get better chances of
catching criminals. It's simply applied statistics.
> There is another way that even takes less time and is not illegal
> because of various international laws: don't question people unless you
> have a serious reason to believe that they are illegal (or you are
> questioning them anyway because of a non-related suspicion or check).
And then watch illegal immigration raise. Right.
It's better to allow illegal immigration than to possibly offend someone.
Do you advocate that mentality with all crimes? Or is this only related
to illegal immigration?
> Frankly I find your reasoning that "I know there is an illegal immigrant
> in this country, so I have to check everybody that looks like he might
> be it" quite disturbing. But that is not unusual.
If find your argument that "the police should not be looking for the
illegal immigrant because doing so might offend someone" even more
disturbing.
--
- Warp
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> > Likewise with illegal immigration: The vast majority of illegal immigrants
> > don't look like locals.
> Sure they do. We have a huge population of Americans of Mexican descent
> here, as well as a whole raft of people descended from the Mexicans who were
> here before the USA took over California.
I think that you understood what I meant, but decided to nitpick on my
wording regardless, just for the sake of argument.
Let me rephrase: If 90% of illegal immigrants are Mexicans, then 90% of
illegal immigrants will look like Mexicans. Hence it only makes sense to
devote 90% of the law enforcement resources to check Mexicans.
"Oooh! That's racial profiling! That's racism!"
Why is it so only with immigration? If the suspect of a crime is a white
male, is it racism to question only white males? Wouldn't it be less racist
to question also black females? You know, for equality.
> This is the problem. It's not that we'll catch illegal immigrants. It's that
> the police will hassle Americans who look Mexican and not hassle the
> Americans who look British.
So what do you suggest? That the police will question equally Mexicans
and British people even though approximately 0% of British people are
illegal? And that makes sense how exactly?
> Or to put it another way, jump back 180 years. Pass a law in the northern
> part of the USA saying everyone had to prove they aren't an escaped slave.
> Do you think there's any way that wouldn't be considered a racist law today?
> Do you think there's any chance you wouldn't wind up locking up a whole lot
> more innocent black people than innocent white people?
You are comparing immigration laws with slavery laws. Same thing?
--
- Warp
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On 01/05/2010 6:51 PM, Warp wrote:
>> Obviously Finland does not have a large immigrant population, about 1%
>> excluding Finnish Swedes as far as I can make out.
>
> 3%. But I don't understand what that has to do with anything.
Well, let me enlighten you.
If you allow the police to stop and question people just because they
look different then you are stacking up a lot of trouble, both for the
police and the authorities. The minorities start to look on both as
enemies, even respectable citizens do that.
In Britain we have had a lot of immigration from the West Indies and the
sub- continent for the last 60 years. Some of the black Britons here are
third generation British. (Actually we have had people of African
descent here for over 300 years. Most of the early ones have blended
into the population by now.) When the police used their Stop and Search
powers to target the black and Asian population, race riots occurred in
1980 and 81 and the SUS law was dropped.
It is wrong.
>It still
> doesn't change the fact that immigrants typically tend to look distinctively
> different from natives.
We are talking about America here where everyone looks different from
the natives.
> You can call it racism if you want. That will not change the facts.
>
informed and stupid.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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