politicartoons | Native American protests at an Arizona Illegal Immigration Rally

> What they should learn? They want to live in a society governed by law

Maybe. But I suspect they really want to live in a society governed by PRIVILEGE. And furthermore, they want to be able to entrench their privilege to the point of calling it law, as a way to insulate themselves from their obvious selfishness.

Thank chron_job. (http://politicartoons.livejournal.com/3539992.html?thread=80837656#t80837656)

Since you referred to

chron_job's comment approvingly, it is my understanding that you believe that a country not founded on unjust privilege is a country with open borders, like the ones the United States had for much of the 19th century, before the frontier closed, except intercontinental travel is now much easier. So in your ideal world, if a million Bangladeshis or Somalis or Malawians decided that they wanted to move to the United States, there should be no obstacles barring them from doing so, just like now there are no obstacles barring a New Yorker from moving to New Jersey. Am I right? I don't want to argue against a caricature of my opponent's position, which is why I want to double check it.

Edited 2013-02-19 23:49 (UTC)

You're so polite I simply MUST respond!

1) Are you implying America wasn't founded on unjust privilege? That's funny.

2) No obstacles. Also funny.

You're throwing around caricatures left and right, which I suppose is appropriate since we're in a political cartoons community. Carry on.

Years of political dialogue in Russophone LiveJournal, and years before that (when the Russophone blogosphere did not yet exist) in English-language forums have taught me to be polite even with people i disagree with.

I asked you, whether in your ideal world, there would be open borders. You haven't answered my question. Please do.

Of course the United States is founded on unjust privilege. There is no justice in that a bus driver in Seattle makes much more money than a bus driver in Chittagong. There is no justice in that a factory worker in Detroit makes much more money than a factory worker in Shenzhen. This is a fact. My question to you is, what you want to do about it. Do you want to allow a Seattle-based bus company to fire all the drivers it currently has, bring new drivers from Chittagong, and pay them much more than they would make in their native Bangladesh, but much less than it used to pay American drivers? Do you want to allow a Detroit-based car company to fire all the workers it currently has, bring new workers from Shenzhen, and pay them much more than they would make in their native China, but much less than it used to pay American workers? In 1913, this was possible, except instead of Chittagong and Shenzhen there would be villages near Naples and towns near Pinsk. Since then, the world population has grown, and so has the wealth gap between rich and poor countries, but in order to cross an ocean a person can now sit on a plane for less than a day instead of crowding in a steerage hold for two weeks. You still haven't answered whether you want to return to the 1913 situation in 2013.

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/false-cause

This is getting boring rather quickly.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-chen/immigrant-scapegoating-no_b_1233008.html

Edited 2013-02-20 02:31 (UTC)

So you are refusing to answer my question. Instead, you are giving irrelevant links. This is what I suspected would happen. Tee-hee.

One last time:

An American who lives in Seattle can find a job in Newark and move there. The U.S. government will not put any obstacles in front of him or say that he breaks any laws. However, if a Mexican who lives in Oaxaca finds a job in New Jersey and moves there without going through the regular immigration procedures, he will break the U.S. immigration laws. There is a possibility that the government will find out that he is an illegal immigrant, and deport him back to Mexico. This is the case in 2013; in 1913, an Italian could go from a village in Campania to Lower Manhattan without much trouble, but times have changed. These laws, however, are enforced inconsistently. There are millions of illegal immigrants in the United States, mostly from Mexico but in fact from all over the world, whom no one deports. The protesters want these laws to be enforced consistently. As I understand it, you have a problem with it. So I am asking you, do you want the laws restricting immigration to be repealed? Do you want it to be as easy to move from Oaxaca to New Jersey as it is to move from Washington State to New Jersey, or as easy as it was to go from an Italian village to Little Italy in New York in 1913? I've asked you several times, but all I got instead of an answer were irrelevant links and a cute facepalm userpic.

Can you answer "Yes, I want the borders of the United States to be open, permitting everybody from all over the world to come here" or "I want the laws to stay the way they are, but continue to be enforced inconsistently" or "I want the laws to change in such-and-such a way"? You seem to have contempt for the protesters, but do not tell us, how your proposal is different from theirs.

That Native guy clearly hates all non-natives because that's what he said, without any sense of irony.

Irony...is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is an incongruity between the literal and the implied meaning. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony)

What make you think that a person saying "Y’all f*cking illegal. You’re all illegal. You’re all illegal! We didn’t invite none of you here!" is ironic and use allegories? His speech is not enough complicated to find additional sense in it.

What privileges do they have? Since Arizona has much bigger problems with illegal immigration than northern states, federals making their decisions about providing education and medicine for illegal emigrants set a heavier burden for Arizona residents then for their states. Therefore those Arizona protesters don't have privileges, they have obligations.

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/black-or-white

Irrelevant links!! Answer my question!!! Tell me in great detail here and now exactly how you would personally restructure your country's immigration policies otherwise you are avoiding my question and must submit to either one of the two false premises I have presented!!!

Edited 2013-02-20 15:25 (UTC)

> What privileges do they have?

Many, of specific poetic irony value in the exchange described in the OP is their privilege to own property which was, in the final analysis, stolen from the ethnic and cultural ancestors of one of the parties to that exchange.

> Since Arizona has much bigger problems with illegal immigration than northern states, federals making
> their decisions about providing education and medicine for illegal emigrants set a heavier burden for Arizona
> residents then for their states.

As a Florida resident, I am very aware of the real issues with immigration. And I am also very aware of the un-real issues that have to do with political posturing.

The above statements I quote from you follow the pretty straight forward conservative framing that purposefully neglects large parts of the equation. There is the primary focus of immigrants as a "burden" as if they cross the border, sit on their ass, and start sucking down welfare checks, pausing only long enough to put their kids into state sponsored babysitting factories.

Ignored is the fact that Immigrants do work, as well as consume products they must pay for with their work. Ignored is the fact that availing themselves of education will increase the degree to which their children are economic positives rather than negatives. The question of to what degree they are a 'burden' as opposed to an asset would depend on the positive versus negative effects of their economic contribution, and that equation has little to do with their legality or illegality. The "illegal immigrants as economic burden" construction is just another of those pre-packaged talking points designed to rationalize away people's natural senses of empathy and fairness, so as to lubricate legislation and policies that enhance privilege.

Edited 2013-02-20 16:37 (UTC)

So you do not have an opinion, what the U.S. immigration laws should be. It appears that you have not given this matter a thought. Yet you have contempt for people (the anti-illegal immigration protesters) who do have such an opinion. Instead of attacking their ideas, which you cannot do because you have not formulated a competing idea, you are attacking them personally: oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc... er, they do not understand that the United States have been founded on unjust privilege.

I have a piece of advice for you: do not let moral posturing replace thinking. I understand that this runs contrary to everything taught in American schools and colleges (which I know firsthand, for unlike the commenter with Brezhnev on his user picture, I have graduated from an American university 17 years ago), but this is a lesson I've learned from the university of life.

Edited 2013-02-20 17:25 (UTC)

their privilege to own property which was, in the final analysis, stolen from the ethnic and cultural ancestors of one of the parties

The guy on video has no stolen property rights. Ancestors privileges and losses are not transferable.

There is the primary focus of immigrants as a "burden" as if they cross the border, sit on their ass, and start sucking down welfare checks

It is not depend on immigrants, it depend on state. In social state, yes, illegal immigrants consume from public funds more than they send to public funds:

http://www.cis.org/High-Cost-of-Cheap-Labor#taxrevenue

Ignored is the fact that Immigrants do work

If a person earns 30K and his family consumes 40K in education and medicine it's a burden, not profit for a society.

The "illegal immigrants as economic burden" construction is just another of those pre-packaged talking points

It is simple: if illegal immigration is a profit for a country then different countries would compete for illegal immigrants. But they don't.

What make you think that a person saying "Y’all f*cking illegal. You’re all illegal. You’re all illegal! We didn’t invite none of you here!" is ironic and use allegories? His speech is not enough complicated to find additional sense in it.
Reply

He was enraged by the hypocrisy of someone who's lineage makes themselves a recent immigrant protesting the current immigrants. The irony of those who generations ago killed his people and stole land by force now protesting those who just want to live together in peace.

Edited 2013-02-20 21:41 (UTC)

What do you think the protesters should have learned?

The hypocrisy of their protest. And to have compassion for current immigrants.

I understand it, what you are saying is that there is something significant the protesters don't see, and if they listened thoughtfully to the counter-protester, they would see it. So what is it?

That they should listen to their great great grandparents ghosts.

do not let moral posturing replace thinking. I understand that this runs contrary to everything taught in American schools and colleges

Oh the irony....

Edited 2013-02-20 21:30 (UTC)

He wasn't complaining about protesters.

Yes he was. He was pointing out the irony of relatively recent immigrants protesting current immigrants.

This is your error.

Protesters were against illegal immigrants

Yeah, see, he doesn't agree that they are any less "illegal". Try to get your head around that. No one is illegal.

their privilege to own property which was, in the final analysis, stolen from the ethnic and cultural ancestors of one of the parties to that exchange.

Are you sure that the ethnic and cultural ancestors of the counter-protester have lived in the area since the beginning of human settlement in the Americas, or have they perhaps displaced earlier inhabitants ("stealing their property")?

Navajo and several Apache languages belong to the Na-Dene language family. The majority of languages of this language family are (or were in recent history) spoken in Alaska, Yukon and thereabouts. The ancestors of the Navajo have migrated to the Southwest around 600 years ago. If the counter-protester is a Navajo, and the protesters' ancestors have lived in Arizona for 100 years, then the counter-protester's ancestors have been in the Southwest longer, but not incredibly many times longer.

(About 12 years ago I went to an Internet forum where one of the participants was an American linguist specializing in Southern Athabascan languages; his account name was the Navajo word for "warrior"; he was one of the very few whites who spoke Jicarilla Apache)

Back when the ancestors of the protesters were illegal immigrants, they just stole the land from the native americans by violence, rape, and murder. And now they complain about others who just want to exist in peace?

Their great grandfathers murdered and stole the land by barrel and blade. And now they call those who merely want to live peacefully "illegal".

No small irony.

Native American protests at an Arizona Illegal Immigration Rally

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