Imigration

[DuncanONeil]

So sorry, Duncan! You hadn't said anything for awhile, so I thought you were gone. Bad assumption on my part.

Well there was a short involuntary vacation in there!

Well of course it's a matter of heart. I have both a heart and a mind 100% of the time; I can't just shut off one or the other. Neither can anyone, so don't pretend your heart doesn't affect how you think.

I would never suggest that the "heart" has no place in the thought process. However, the nature of life requires hard decisions. Sometimes those decisions can appear heartless.

While logic has it's place, so do emotions, and you need both reasoning and emotions to make good decisions.

As I said life requires hard decisions. In this issue there are such to be made. Some would argue, as you might, that people in Mexico need help. Should that not be the job of Mexico? Does allowing Mexico to, essentially, send their "problem" people to the US provide them the help they need? Or is Mexico pawning the problem off on someone else? You correct in an aspect of this, that reason and heart are needed. But heart alone is a poor way to make decisions. Heart requires that all be aided. But in a system of limited resources that is not possible. Nearly everyone understands triage. Triage only works under the rules of logic and thereby aids the heart in assisting the most.

[quote] Do you really believe that human rights trump legal rights?

Not at all. There isn't a person anywhere who can stop being human for a moment; so therefore, human rights always apply, and in this country we believe that a person's human rights should be protected by their legal rights. And no, that is not granted to only citizens. It is granted to all who stand on our soil (in theory).

So you do believe that "human rights" trump "legal rights" (human rights always apply). Yes human rights are protected by legal rights. But actually not all legal rights apply equally, some apply only to categories of people.

Clearly, for you, the US citizen is somehow more important than the illegal immigrant; that the US citizen somehow deserves help more than the illegal immigrant.

More important is a hard way to express this. All people are important. But in the issue here, Government services, there is an inherent priority. The Constitution is the governing document of Congress. As law the Constitution is different than all others. It attains to the People of the United States and our Posterity. As such its, and that of Congress, duty is to the people of the United States. Therefore it is not improper to suggest that first priority for service of the US go to citizens.
The US does not stint in providing assistance to those not citizens of the US. In fact the US puts a huge sum into aiding other countries, twice that of the country in second. It is not so high in terms of percent of Gross National Income that "honor" is held by Sweden at 1.12%. Interestingly enough while the percent of income we contribute is 18% of Sweden their dollars is 18% of ours! That really means nothing I just find it interesting.
I guess it really boils down to not that the US citizen deserves help more but that in the US they should have priority.

There are those of us who believe that both people are equal, no matter how laws might be written or how you wish to label people. So yes, while it is a shame that there is not enough aid for all, it is an equal tragedy for the aid to run out for either person. One person is not better than another, and labels and laws can't change that.

Do you contribute to charity? Do you give to every charity that "comes to your door"? Or do you choose among the charities due to limited resources? That is another example of that hard decision matrix. We all do it all the time!
As for labeling people, we are human, it is our nature. Part of the desire for order. We classify everything; the heat, cold, weather, rain, snow (eskimos have as many as 20 words for snow), animals (squirrels are cute, rats ugly) even when they are essentially the same. The same applies to people; short, tall, thin, thick, cute, not, beautiful, hunk, not, yellow, red, white, brown, dark, light, freckled. In spite of all that 98% of us all agree on one thing they are people. Also that we will help them if they need it and if we can. But to suggest that we MUST just because they decide to camp out in our back yard is neither charity nor appropriate.

So wouldn't it be better if an illegal immigrant would be able to work on the books and contribute towards society? I do not understand why we would desire to prevent them from contributing their taxes by creating laws that force them to work off the books.

We do not create laws "that force them to work off the books.". The laws are to "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization," and by extension immigration. These people choose to ignore these rules and laws and put themselves in a position where they must continue to break the laws on a daily basis.

I agree; that was an aggravating experience for you; I also have had similar circumstances happen to me. But the blame is squarely on the shoulders of the supermarket, who obviously put a person in a position they were not qualified for and did not train properly. However it is most likely that this person was legally allowed to work in the US, if something like a grocery store hired them. So this person had every right to do a poor job at serving your meat to you. Of course that is terrible customer service, but that's all it was.

You miss the point! And further you assume based on the business that the person is legal. The customer service issue is the least of my worries, I can fix that, that is on the store. Someone that can not talk to the customer being hired is on the store. The store should not have to train an employee to speak English! Especially in this case! Meat cutter is not one of those "won't do" jobs, usually union as well.