If so they were deliberately being obtuse. People already knew about this at their launch and were talking about how the Go! guy has been sending the project letters and filling out contact forms for some time now with no response.
I think its more of a case of Google thinking they were more important than some academic and could squash him and keep their name since he has no trademark (a common english word wouldn't qualify for trademark unless you can grease pockets). Thats great for a legal court but now they are in the court of public opinion.
Yes actually there was. What isn't in the summary is that this guy contacted Google numerous times prior to their big announcement about Go. Google ignored him and released with the name Go anyway figuring they could hijack it for their language and get away it. That is deliberate malice.
How do I know? Because other people knew and talked about in the comments on the Slashdot story announcing Go.
Wikipedia entry or no, his little experiment is published in peer reviewed journals and cited in numerous places.
In the background? Admittedly the last time I used Gentoo I had a state of the art P4 and a gig of ram but getting up to the desktop literally took three days worth of compiling.
There was a choice to use some precompiled base binaries that would have sped things up some but that sort of defeats the point.
I could see the use if you need bleeding edge packages. But if you are willing to wait a month for them they just work in Ubuntu with a binary package system.
Fascinating. Personally I don't run Gentoo because compiling the entire system takes more extra time than the added performance saves me over the life of the install.
The string class example was bogus but he has a point. It does seem like every library wants everything stored as its own special type of whatever. Including strings.
""Open Source" for the geeks, "Google Branded" for the techies, and "Apple" for the wanna bees?"
I hear that. I've always enjoyed a good chuckle when limp wristed graphics artsy and English pedants make a comment implying mac users tend to be more tech savvy.
The mac is a platform that thrives on being intuitive and idiot proof. A system where you need know nothing about hardware or the nuts and bolts of the system. Even power user keyboard shortcuts are an afterthought. At the beginning of the millennium MacOS still lacked viable multi-tasking and required third party software to enable virtual memory.
And yet people who know nothing of the hardware or the software, don't realize they should demand multi-tasking and virtual memory, who apparently didn't rely upon power user features like keyboard shortcuts and command lines. They were the supposed tech savvy crowd.
Speak for yourself, once it compiles and appears to run you never look at the source again and tell users that new features are impossible and bugs are the result of their other software conflicting.
Well yes but not really. They built this for themselves and released it because they don't care. Google develops a lot of in-house server based internet stuff and they spend a lot of time waiting on compiles.
"But the first time you drive by an ER and see a dead guy sitting outside the door, I bet you would be pretty appalled. Now imagine a dead kid there too (they bring their families with them too, you know)."
Not as appalled by the illegal who intentionally risked his child's life because he couldn't be bothered to obey our immigration laws. It isn't as if there isn't a legal route to entering this country with fairly easy to meet requirements.
If you make the risks great enough, not just for the workers but their families then they will start to question the benefits of bypassing immigration and labor laws.
Of course one thing won't solve the problem. I support RFID tagging illegals who are caught and deported in a way that isn't easy to remove but doesn't hurt them either. This would make it easy to require businesses to deny services to illegals or at least the ones who have been previously deported and even easier to deny them jobs.
"You do it by putting the American farmer or construction company owner who hired him in the first place in handcuffs and telling the other farmers/construction company owners that if they keep hiring illegals, they're next."
Why not do both?
I do think we should make immigration a bit easier though. No questions asked immigration center on U.S. soil for instance in case they had to enter illegally because of their side of the border.
The immigration quotas are there for a reason but so long as the military is recruiting citizens then immigrants should be offered the chance to serve (with full pay and benefits and the same recruitment standards) in mixed units and be granted citizenship at the end of their term (along with their spouse and children of course). People who go that route shouldn't count against immigration quotas. Hell, if they serve in a war then I would say they should considered the same as natural born citizens and qualify to serve as President. Anyone who is willing to risk dying defending our way of life has just as much investment in the nations welfare as those who have lived their lives here.
"They aren't stupid, and if they are dying will do, just as they should, what it takes to get care, even if that means they have to claim they lost their driving license. "
Why do people like you insist on raising the fallacy that if we can't achieve perfect enforcement we must do nothing at all?
RFID tagging caught illegals before deportation gives you one check to catch illegals (removing the tag would still leave an observable scar). Fingerprinting helps as well. For the conscious they should be able to provide verifiable social security number (something already collected at hospitals for bill collection purposes).
And yes, there is also asking. The great thing about enforcement with illegals is that in many cases they are ignorant of our laws, especially when they have only just arrived.
It doesn't have to work 100% of the time. You deny benefits, you plug holes in the checks as you can and the enforcement rate increases. You add requirements for ER staff to report suspected illegals to the INS and any illegal with family is risking them by showing up in the ER. Not to mention the fact that the ER only has to make sure a person is not dying before tossing them in the street, it is a far cry from providing medical care.
"These people will include "citizens" and people legally travelling in the US."
Is there some reason you quoted citizens? Citizens will know their social security number and even citizens get no more than a check to make sure they aren't dying in the ER without insurance. People traveling in the U.S. either should not be treated or should be required to purchase medical insurance to visit (are they already? most western nations require this). I see no reason for force hospitals to foot the bill to treat people who aren't even U.S. citizens or legal immigrants (non-taxpayers).
"But the current USA does benefit greatly from illegal immigrants. Isn't it nice that the farming industry gets to pay people much less and save costs w/o regard for their rights?"
No the country does not benefit from illegal labor for the very reason you claim it benefits. Illegals come from a third world nation with a lower standard of rights and living than ours and as such will accept workplace conditions and pay that violate our labor laws. That is a detriment to better qualified law abiding citizens who would otherwise perform those jobs and who did do them prior to the recent illegal influx.
"Immigrants are immigrants.. all this focus on "illegal" is because people think they have some intrinsic greater right because their ancestors came first."
And your reason for this assumption is? The term illegal is because they are criminals breaking our laws. This focus on illegal is because we have a fairly lax and open immigration policy and isn't difficult to come here legally. All you have to do is disavow your allegiance to your former government, swear allegiance to our nation, learn (minimal) English, and find gainful LEGAL employment.
"Anybody who wants to come and work and contribute to the economy should be welcome."
I agree of course with the condition they do so in a way that is legal and in accordance with our immigration and labor laws. That includes immigration quotas that prevent an influx of foreigners from overtaking U.S. territory and seizing political control. The need for this can for instance be seen in a southern CA town with a 97% latino population about half of those illegal who took over the town council and actively pass laws to thwart and bypass enforcement of immigration measures. For instance they dissolve the traffic enforcement division of the police so they could no longer impound the cars of illegal immigrants without a drivers license.
"There just needs to be a more humane way of accepting them that doesn't involve labels like "illegal" and affords them the same rights others enjoy."
There is. There is a legal and welcoming immigration process in the United States. If you go to Ellis Island you will find books logging thousands upon thousands of LEGAL immigrants entering the country who are the ancestors of those you say 'think they have some intrinsic greater right because their ancestors came first'.
Of course those who came first do have a greater right in one sense. The established traditions and culture of the United States certainly take precedent in our government and laws. For instance, the spoken language in the United States is English and any immigrant moving here should expect that they would need to learn our language, not change it.
It is one thing to welcome people. It is quite another to change our nation and culture to suit them. It is the outsider who should bend neck not the people who are gracious enough to welcome them.
I don't think any American would expect to move to a nation which spoke another language and not have to learn and speak the language of that nation.
"Seeing no evidence of a conspiracy to erode our precious culture myself, it does come down to your credibility. "
Right I mean, who would consider massive rallies and marches of hispanics to that end with major media coverage evidence.
"You worry that you'll have to learn a new language and you don't want to bother. I don't either, but look at it realistically: to graduate college and get a real job, you need to speak english."
Not in Miami and I suspect not in California. There are areas like Miami beach where English is spoken primarily and a couple neighborhoods where both are spoken. But throughout the rest of Miami all the shop signs and clerks speak Spanish only. You can't find anyone willing to assist you in English already. Spanish is the default choice of language on all telephone menus and even for government services there. The reason? The immigration influx was massive and rapid enough that all the politicians and most government officials there are Cuban. Many don't think of themselves as American at all, they are Cubans in exile from their home.
From what I have heard something similar has happened in at least part of California and in the past decade the immigrants have rapidly begun to spread throughout the country. With enough immigrants there will be immigrant owned businesses providing support only in Spanish throughout the country just like there are in Miami.
Some interesting reading that shows a common theme:
"What made it fair? Did the settlers make sure that the Indians had an equal number of guns and soldiers before starting each battle?"
Natural law made it fair. Is it fair that I have to obey the law or the police will come and use guns, sticks, and other instruments of violence to force me into a cage against my will? Even my actions haven't hurt anyone else? Yes, it is fair because the right of the fittest is the only REAL right. Society and government doesn't exist to do away with that right, it only exists because the many are fitter than the few.
The Native Americans recognized the same. They fought one another and imposed their will. They took the women and food of conquered tribes and slaughtered the men.
We fight for conquest still even if we are too delicate a population to accept that excuse outright. We come up with excuses, we use occupation forces to 'spread democracy' which is another way of saying we establish puppet governments refuse the conquered people U.S. citizenship and the rights that come with it.
"By your definition of "fair and square", illegal immigration is also "fair and square", as long as the immigrants can get away with it. Which, frankly, they can, because the majority of the US population doesn't have the stomach for the sort of draconian measures that would be necessary to remove them."
Agreed. Hence my call to arms. These people are not merely disrespecting our nation but are actually holding marches waving a Mexican flag claiming half the united states is really part of Mexico. There was a time we would have executed people claiming our territory in the name of another nation; I don't think the government of Canada or Mexico would be pleased if we invaded their territory and proclaimed it to be U.S. soil.
In any case I've suggested basic but firm measures that would help defend the border elsewhere. Immigration laws exist for good reasons and the requirements are basic. Disavowing their former government, swearing allegiance to ours and learning a very minimal amount of English. That and showing gainful LEGAL employment.
I believe the answer is two-fold. To provide a meaningful alternative legal route to entry into the U.S. and enact iron tough laws for illegals. They are criminals and there is nothing wrong with treating them that way.
I think an asylum camp where we give political refuges a chance to enter legally (WITH reasonable quotas enforced to prevent what is essentially a foreign people from taking over politically and drowning out the voice of Americans). A don't ask don't tell policy would apply for how they crossed otherwise the same immigration rules would apply. This would let people already here and people who had to avoid the Mexican border patrol a chance.
Additionally, I think a military route to citizenship should be allowed for immigrants from any nation we are not at war with who would qualify for military service. Immigrants who come this way shouldn't count against immigration quotas and should be mixed into native troop populations. Few are more patriotic than our troops (even when they shouldn't be imho).
But that would have to come with stricter enforcement as well and I don't mean increased patrols or walls. I think when we catch illegals we should prosecute them for crimes (like possessing forged identification, identity theft, or federal documents like social security cards) and after they serve their time (if any) for those crimes we should simply RFID tag and deport them.
We should require businesses to put in detectors at the doors to detect these tags and refuse services to people who have them and require them to report attempts. The above pavillions would check for these (and scars from removing them) as well and disqualify anyone who has one or their children.
For job applicants a simple check for a scar that would left by surgically removing these implants would be required in addition to this. Of course you would have to combine that with a report hotline for the INS and ra
"Isn't that what the East German Government said when they were building the Berlin Wall?"
I see. So now basic enforcement of immigration law isn't quite devil worshiping nazism but it is still on par with the berlin wall.
Be real. Nobody is saying anything about barring LEGAL immigration here only enforcing the law where people entering the country refuse to immigrate legally.
There are requirements and limitation on legal immigration for reasons. Good reasons. Requirements like learning minimal English and swearing loyalty to the United States while renouncing loyalty to the foreign power they are leaving. Attaining gainful employment under the same terms as citizens. Allowing time for them become accustomed to the standard of living we enjoy here and to insist upon that standard of living for themselves and their families.
"Papers please. Send him to the gulag, he doesn't have papers. Or try this, he doesn't have to mark of the beast, 666 or whatever."
You got me, my secret goal was not to aggressively enforce our law but rather to turn us into devil worshiping Nazis.
"If only the native American Indians had been able to do that too. Then they wouldn't have been massacred, had land stolen from then, then forced onto small reservations."
Yup. Not that they didn't try, I mean they raped and massacred women and children until they were conquered.
Or are you comparing my suggestion that we actually take minimal action against criminals is similar to how the Native Americans reacted to our immigration? Now we are up to the devil worshiping nazi raper/murderer.
Silly me, I was aiming for enforcing our laws and refusing services to known criminals.
California is the single biggest agricultural producer there is no denying that. But California hasn't even been a U.S. state long enough to claim the country was built on anything produced there. The distant second runner up is Texas. But as impressive as that is their production pales next to the Midwest which produces 35% of all agricultural output in the U.S.*
I can't speak for New England and illegal immigrants but New England isn't (relative to the Midwest and California) a big agricultural producer. In general those states are smaller and more populated. I can speak of the Midwest. I grew up in rural Illinois (Effingham) and have traveled extensively throughout the Midwest and the farms there. Farms in the Midwest are usually run by families that have been farmers for generations and the rural countryside is full of prejudice (of the surface variety, it is easy to repeat slurs when you've never met a minority. I saw a black man for the first time at 16yrs old).
I did go back home a year or two ago and there was an influx of immigrants (legal or otherwise). They weren't working the farms though they were working in Mexican style restaurants and the locals didn't seem especially happy about it. Apparently the areas where they settled had a reputation for crime, something the small town hadn't really known much of. That is straying a bit from the point though.
Our two hundred plus year old nation was hardly built on illegal labor from the past few decades and if there are businesses relying on illegal labor now then let them fall. It isn't as if our nation will collapse, other legitimate business will replace them and possibly employ some of the many out of work citizens who desperately need those jobs.
Securing the borders is an almost impossible task but being tough on illegals here is not. Knowing any illness or injury may be fatal here is a substantial deterrent. Denying citizenship to the children of illegals would remove one of the biggest motivations they might have to take that risk. Active deportation programs that include RFID implants would be another step in the right direction. Checking for the implant (and the scar that would be left by surgically removing it) would make it easy for repeat offenders to be denied legal work or any form of legal entry in the future. We could require businesses to have scanners just like we require handicap parking spaces and require all businesses to refuse services to illegal aliens and report any who attempt to purchase services.
Another myth. America was not built on cotton and tobacco either. The north and west is where our wealth is concentrated and also where our food is grown (mostly the midwest).
Not that having had slave labor means much. In Africa blacks enslaved entire tribes as a matter of routine long before european merchants got there and bought those slaves from them to resell in the americas.
Not that this was the first encounter Europeans had with slavery. The roman empire was built on slavery and a thousand years ago slavery was a pretty common practice throughout the globe.
Mostly the former slaver practiced in America is a political tactic used by people who were never repressed to gain advantage over people who never repressed anyone. This is usually justified by a claim that white america benefited financially from slavery and the disparity still exists (nevermind that grouping people into a white and black america is racism or that there are no shortage of poor white americans in the food stamp line).
"But our current agricultural industry is heavily subsidized by illegal immigrant labor."
That's a myth. The illegal immigrants are in California and the southwest. Most of the southwest is desert. California has orchards and such but the by far the vast majority of the food grown in the US is grown in the rural midwest by people arent big fans of illegal immigration.
Slashdot Mirror
"My point is that the authors of Go at Google definitely wouldn't have found this programming language by doing some simple searches."
True but the half dozen communications from this academic before their release and after they choose the name should have given them a hint...
"Google was unaware that the name was taken."
If so they were deliberately being obtuse. People already knew about this at their launch and were talking about how the Go! guy has been sending the project letters and filling out contact forms for some time now with no response.
I think its more of a case of Google thinking they were more important than some academic and could squash him and keep their name since he has no trademark (a common english word wouldn't qualify for trademark unless you can grease pockets). Thats great for a legal court but now they are in the court of public opinion.
A common english word like Go shouldn't even qualify for a trademark but no doubt Google can buy one anyway.
"McCabe's mostly sounding like a jackass. "Oh Google stole my name!" COMMON ENGLISH WORD, hello?"
Then you should have no objection to Google's next big thing. They are calling it 'C' after the common English letter.
"Not really. There was no malice here anywhere."
Yes actually there was. What isn't in the summary is that this guy contacted Google numerous times prior to their big announcement about Go. Google ignored him and released with the name Go anyway figuring they could hijack it for their language and get away it. That is deliberate malice.
How do I know? Because other people knew and talked about in the comments on the Slashdot story announcing Go.
Wikipedia entry or no, his little experiment is published in peer reviewed journals and cited in numerous places.
In the background? Admittedly the last time I used Gentoo I had a state of the art P4 and a gig of ram but getting up to the desktop literally took three days worth of compiling.
There was a choice to use some precompiled base binaries that would have sped things up some but that sort of defeats the point.
I could see the use if you need bleeding edge packages. But if you are willing to wait a month for them they just work in Ubuntu with a binary package system.
"is mainly why I don't run Gentoo"
Fascinating. Personally I don't run Gentoo because compiling the entire system takes more extra time than the added performance saves me over the life of the install.
Not if you already know QWERTY... or use computers you don't own on a regular basis.
The string class example was bogus but he has a point. It does seem like every library wants everything stored as its own special type of whatever. Including strings.
""Open Source" for the geeks, "Google Branded" for the techies, and "Apple" for the wanna bees?"
I hear that. I've always enjoyed a good chuckle when limp wristed graphics artsy and English pedants make a comment implying mac users tend to be more tech savvy.
The mac is a platform that thrives on being intuitive and idiot proof. A system where you need know nothing about hardware or the nuts and bolts of the system. Even power user keyboard shortcuts are an afterthought. At the beginning of the millennium MacOS still lacked viable multi-tasking and required third party software to enable virtual memory.
And yet people who know nothing of the hardware or the software, don't realize they should demand multi-tasking and virtual memory, who apparently didn't rely upon power user features like keyboard shortcuts and command lines. They were the supposed tech savvy crowd.
I'd prefer a gohome statement. That way I only have to write one line of code each day.
Speak for yourself, once it compiles and appears to run you never look at the source again and tell users that new features are impossible and bugs are the result of their other software conflicting.
Every big software corp does this ;)
Well yes but not really. They built this for themselves and released it because they don't care. Google develops a lot of in-house server based internet stuff and they spend a lot of time waiting on compiles.
"But the first time you drive by an ER and see a dead guy sitting outside the door, I bet you would be pretty appalled. Now imagine a dead kid there too (they bring their families with them too, you know)."
Not as appalled by the illegal who intentionally risked his child's life because he couldn't be bothered to obey our immigration laws. It isn't as if there isn't a legal route to entering this country with fairly easy to meet requirements.
If you make the risks great enough, not just for the workers but their families then they will start to question the benefits of bypassing immigration and labor laws.
Of course one thing won't solve the problem. I support RFID tagging illegals who are caught and deported in a way that isn't easy to remove but doesn't hurt them either. This would make it easy to require businesses to deny services to illegals or at least the ones who have been previously deported and even easier to deny them jobs.
"You do it by putting the American farmer or construction company owner who hired him in the first place in handcuffs and telling the other farmers/construction company owners that if they keep hiring illegals, they're next."
Why not do both?
I do think we should make immigration a bit easier though. No questions asked immigration center on U.S. soil for instance in case they had to enter illegally because of their side of the border.
The immigration quotas are there for a reason but so long as the military is recruiting citizens then immigrants should be offered the chance to serve (with full pay and benefits and the same recruitment standards) in mixed units and be granted citizenship at the end of their term (along with their spouse and children of course). People who go that route shouldn't count against immigration quotas. Hell, if they serve in a war then I would say they should considered the same as natural born citizens and qualify to serve as President. Anyone who is willing to risk dying defending our way of life has just as much investment in the nations welfare as those who have lived their lives here.
"They aren't stupid, and if they are dying will do, just as they should, what it takes to get care, even if that means they have to claim they lost their driving license. "
Why do people like you insist on raising the fallacy that if we can't achieve perfect enforcement we must do nothing at all?
RFID tagging caught illegals before deportation gives you one check to catch illegals (removing the tag would still leave an observable scar). Fingerprinting helps as well. For the conscious they should be able to provide verifiable social security number (something already collected at hospitals for bill collection purposes).
And yes, there is also asking. The great thing about enforcement with illegals is that in many cases they are ignorant of our laws, especially when they have only just arrived.
It doesn't have to work 100% of the time. You deny benefits, you plug holes in the checks as you can and the enforcement rate increases. You add requirements for ER staff to report suspected illegals to the INS and any illegal with family is risking them by showing up in the ER. Not to mention the fact that the ER only has to make sure a person is not dying before tossing them in the street, it is a far cry from providing medical care.
"These people will include "citizens" and people legally travelling in the US."
Is there some reason you quoted citizens? Citizens will know their social security number and even citizens get no more than a check to make sure they aren't dying in the ER without insurance. People traveling in the U.S. either should not be treated or should be required to purchase medical insurance to visit (are they already? most western nations require this). I see no reason for force hospitals to foot the bill to treat people who aren't even U.S. citizens or legal immigrants (non-taxpayers).
"But the current USA does benefit greatly from illegal immigrants. Isn't it nice that the farming industry gets to pay people much less and save costs w/o regard for their rights?"
No the country does not benefit from illegal labor for the very reason you claim it benefits. Illegals come from a third world nation with a lower standard of rights and living than ours and as such will accept workplace conditions and pay that violate our labor laws. That is a detriment to better qualified law abiding citizens who would otherwise perform those jobs and who did do them prior to the recent illegal influx.
"Immigrants are immigrants.. all this focus on "illegal" is because people think they have some intrinsic greater right because their ancestors came first."
And your reason for this assumption is? The term illegal is because they are criminals breaking our laws. This focus on illegal is because we have a fairly lax and open immigration policy and isn't difficult to come here legally. All you have to do is disavow your allegiance to your former government, swear allegiance to our nation, learn (minimal) English, and find gainful LEGAL employment.
"Anybody who wants to come and work and contribute to the economy should be welcome."
I agree of course with the condition they do so in a way that is legal and in accordance with our immigration and labor laws. That includes immigration quotas that prevent an influx of foreigners from overtaking U.S. territory and seizing political control. The need for this can for instance be seen in a southern CA town with a 97% latino population about half of those illegal who took over the town council and actively pass laws to thwart and bypass enforcement of immigration measures. For instance they dissolve the traffic enforcement division of the police so they could no longer impound the cars of illegal immigrants without a drivers license.
"There just needs to be a more humane way of accepting them that doesn't involve labels like "illegal" and affords them the same rights others enjoy."
There is. There is a legal and welcoming immigration process in the United States. If you go to Ellis Island you will find books logging thousands upon thousands of LEGAL immigrants entering the country who are the ancestors of those you say 'think they have some intrinsic greater right because their ancestors came first'.
Of course those who came first do have a greater right in one sense. The established traditions and culture of the United States certainly take precedent in our government and laws. For instance, the spoken language in the United States is English and any immigrant moving here should expect that they would need to learn our language, not change it.
It is one thing to welcome people. It is quite another to change our nation and culture to suit them. It is the outsider who should bend neck not the people who are gracious enough to welcome them.
I don't think any American would expect to move to a nation which spoke another language and not have to learn and speak the language of that nation.
"Seeing no evidence of a conspiracy to erode our precious culture myself, it does come down to your credibility. "
Right I mean, who would consider massive rallies and marches of hispanics to that end with major media coverage evidence.
"You worry that you'll have to learn a new language and you don't want to bother. I don't either, but look at it realistically: to graduate college and get a real job, you need to speak english."
Not in Miami and I suspect not in California. There are areas like Miami beach where English is spoken primarily and a couple neighborhoods where both are spoken. But throughout the rest of Miami all the shop signs and clerks speak Spanish only. You can't find anyone willing to assist you in English already. Spanish is the default choice of language on all telephone menus and even for government services there. The reason? The immigration influx was massive and rapid enough that all the politicians and most government officials there are Cuban. Many don't think of themselves as American at all, they are Cubans in exile from their home.
From what I have heard something similar has happened in at least part of California and in the past decade the immigrants have rapidly begun to spread throughout the country. With enough immigrants there will be immigrant owned businesses providing support only in Spanish throughout the country just like there are in Miami.
Some interesting reading that shows a common theme:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/mexicoflag.asp
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/57772/protest_ends_with_mexican_flag_on_california.html
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=13863
http://across.co.nz/AlienRights07.html
"What made it fair? Did the settlers make sure that the Indians had an equal number of guns and soldiers before starting each battle?"
Natural law made it fair. Is it fair that I have to obey the law or the police will come and use guns, sticks, and other instruments of violence to force me into a cage against my will? Even my actions haven't hurt anyone else? Yes, it is fair because the right of the fittest is the only REAL right. Society and government doesn't exist to do away with that right, it only exists because the many are fitter than the few.
The Native Americans recognized the same. They fought one another and imposed their will. They took the women and food of conquered tribes and slaughtered the men.
We fight for conquest still even if we are too delicate a population to accept that excuse outright. We come up with excuses, we use occupation forces to 'spread democracy' which is another way of saying we establish puppet governments refuse the conquered people U.S. citizenship and the rights that come with it.
"By your definition of "fair and square", illegal immigration is also "fair and square", as long as the immigrants can get away with it. Which, frankly, they can, because the majority of the US population doesn't have the stomach for the sort of draconian measures that would be necessary to remove them."
Agreed. Hence my call to arms. These people are not merely disrespecting our nation but are actually holding marches waving a Mexican flag claiming half the united states is really part of Mexico. There was a time we would have executed people claiming our territory in the name of another nation; I don't think the government of Canada or Mexico would be pleased if we invaded their territory and proclaimed it to be U.S. soil.
In any case I've suggested basic but firm measures that would help defend the border elsewhere. Immigration laws exist for good reasons and the requirements are basic. Disavowing their former government, swearing allegiance to ours and learning a very minimal amount of English. That and showing gainful LEGAL employment.
I believe the answer is two-fold. To provide a meaningful alternative legal route to entry into the U.S. and enact iron tough laws for illegals. They are criminals and there is nothing wrong with treating them that way.
I think an asylum camp where we give political refuges a chance to enter legally (WITH reasonable quotas enforced to prevent what is essentially a foreign people from taking over politically and drowning out the voice of Americans). A don't ask don't tell policy would apply for how they crossed otherwise the same immigration rules would apply. This would let people already here and people who had to avoid the Mexican border patrol a chance.
Additionally, I think a military route to citizenship should be allowed for immigrants from any nation we are not at war with who would qualify for military service. Immigrants who come this way shouldn't count against immigration quotas and should be mixed into native troop populations. Few are more patriotic than our troops (even when they shouldn't be imho).
But that would have to come with stricter enforcement as well and I don't mean increased patrols or walls. I think when we catch illegals we should prosecute them for crimes (like possessing forged identification, identity theft, or federal documents like social security cards) and after they serve their time (if any) for those crimes we should simply RFID tag and deport them.
We should require businesses to put in detectors at the doors to detect these tags and refuse services to people who have them and require them to report attempts. The above pavillions would check for these (and scars from removing them) as well and disqualify anyone who has one or their children.
For job applicants a simple check for a scar that would left by surgically removing these implants would be required in addition to this. Of course you would have to combine that with a report hotline for the INS and ra
"Isn't that what the East German Government said when they were building the Berlin Wall?"
I see. So now basic enforcement of immigration law isn't quite devil worshiping nazism but it is still on par with the berlin wall.
Be real. Nobody is saying anything about barring LEGAL immigration here only enforcing the law where people entering the country refuse to immigrate legally.
There are requirements and limitation on legal immigration for reasons. Good reasons. Requirements like learning minimal English and swearing loyalty to the United States while renouncing loyalty to the foreign power they are leaving. Attaining gainful employment under the same terms as citizens. Allowing time for them become accustomed to the standard of living we enjoy here and to insist upon that standard of living for themselves and their families.
"Papers please. Send him to the gulag, he doesn't have papers. Or try this, he doesn't have to mark of the beast, 666 or whatever."
You got me, my secret goal was not to aggressively enforce our law but rather to turn us into devil worshiping Nazis.
"If only the native American Indians had been able to do that too. Then they wouldn't have been massacred, had land stolen from then, then forced onto small reservations."
Yup. Not that they didn't try, I mean they raped and massacred women and children until they were conquered.
Or are you comparing my suggestion that we actually take minimal action against criminals is similar to how the Native Americans reacted to our immigration? Now we are up to the devil worshiping nazi raper/murderer.
Silly me, I was aiming for enforcing our laws and refusing services to known criminals.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1435534&cid=30025306
California is the single biggest agricultural producer there is no denying that. But California hasn't even been a U.S. state long enough to claim the country was built on anything produced there. The distant second runner up is Texas. But as impressive as that is their production pales next to the Midwest which produces 35% of all agricultural output in the U.S.*
I can't speak for New England and illegal immigrants but New England isn't (relative to the Midwest and California) a big agricultural producer. In general those states are smaller and more populated. I can speak of the Midwest. I grew up in rural Illinois (Effingham) and have traveled extensively throughout the Midwest and the farms there. Farms in the Midwest are usually run by families that have been farmers for generations and the rural countryside is full of prejudice (of the surface variety, it is easy to repeat slurs when you've never met a minority. I saw a black man for the first time at 16yrs old).
I did go back home a year or two ago and there was an influx of immigrants (legal or otherwise). They weren't working the farms though they were working in Mexican style restaurants and the locals didn't seem especially happy about it. Apparently the areas where they settled had a reputation for crime, something the small town hadn't really known much of. That is straying a bit from the point though.
Our two hundred plus year old nation was hardly built on illegal labor from the past few decades and if there are businesses relying on illegal labor now then let them fall. It isn't as if our nation will collapse, other legitimate business will replace them and possibly employ some of the many out of work citizens who desperately need those jobs.
Securing the borders is an almost impossible task but being tough on illegals here is not. Knowing any illness or injury may be fatal here is a substantial deterrent. Denying citizenship to the children of illegals would remove one of the biggest motivations they might have to take that risk. Active deportation programs that include RFID implants would be another step in the right direction. Checking for the implant (and the scar that would be left by surgically removing it) would make it easy for repeat offenders to be denied legal work or any form of legal entry in the future. We could require businesses to have scanners just like we require handicap parking spaces and require all businesses to refuse services to illegal aliens and report any who attempt to purchase services.
* http://stuffaboutstates.com/agriculture/index.html
"Tell that to the indians."
I think they prefer native american. But that was good old fashioned conquest fair and square.
Any tribes that disagree are welcome to go on the war path and see how well they fare.
Another myth. America was not built on cotton and tobacco either. The north and west is where our wealth is concentrated and also where our food is grown (mostly the midwest).
Not that having had slave labor means much. In Africa blacks enslaved entire tribes as a matter of routine long before european merchants got there and bought those slaves from them to resell in the americas.
Not that this was the first encounter Europeans had with slavery. The roman empire was built on slavery and a thousand years ago slavery was a pretty common practice throughout the globe.
Mostly the former slaver practiced in America is a political tactic used by people who were never repressed to gain advantage over people who never repressed anyone. This is usually justified by a claim that white america benefited financially from slavery and the disparity still exists (nevermind that grouping people into a white and black america is racism or that there are no shortage of poor white americans in the food stamp line).
"But our current agricultural industry is heavily subsidized by illegal immigrant labor."
That's a myth. The illegal immigrants are in California and the southwest. Most of the southwest is desert. California has orchards and such but the by far the vast majority of the food grown in the US is grown in the rural midwest by people arent big fans of illegal immigration.