The Big Lawsuit

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Oh BS Finn. They found the body of another dead child drowned in the Rio Grande this weekend. They find bodies in the desert near the border. We know that these kids, and the adults for that matter, are subject to assault, rape, robbery and other abuses. How "Christian" is it to encourage or support a continuation of the current migration?

Speaking of "simple - minded", to suggest that all of this is somehow a function of the demand for cheap labor is WAY oversimplifying the issue. Sure its a component, but that component hardly applies to the children seeking refugee status. Are you suggesting that these children are going to be processed through their hearings and then immediately hired at their local McDonalds?

Who said anything about encouraging or supporting the current migration? If you acknowledge that they're trying to escape assault, rape, robbery, and murder in their homeland, then you're obligated under our laws and treaties to give them asylum hearings.

Coming here for economic reasons and coming here to escape oppression/murder are indeed two different things. We have no obligation to accept anybody coming here for economic reasons, but we do have an obligation to give them an asylum hearing if they show up here as legitimate refugees. If it were impossible for them to land jobs in our economy, the numbers coming here for strictly economic reasons would diminish to a trickle. It's the GOP trying to conflate these two types of folks showing up at the border.

[piece-itpete]

If we are going to accept responsibility for the kids in the world we also get to dictate rules to those countries. Responsibility = authority. Which ironically enough would make us the world's policeman.

I see the UN is trying to force it as a refugee crisis.

Pete

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

If we are going to accept responsibility for the kids in the world we also get to dictate rules to those countries. Responsibility = authority. Which ironically enough would make us the world's policeman.

I see the UN is trying to force it as a refugee crisis.

Pete

There's nothing in any UN treaties or international law saying that those offering asylum have the right to dictate rules to the refugees' countries of origin. Moreover, it's completely nonsensical. We can dictate to whomever we wish, but that doesn't guarantee any level of change in their culture or political system. Can we simply snap our fingers and make Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Mali, Afghanistan, the West Bank, etc. peaceful Jeffersonian democracies? I bet all of those countries are waiting with bated breath for us to issues such edicts that will immediately resolve all of their problems. While we're at it, somebody in Washington should issue an edict telling everybody in Chicago to stop shooting each other. I'm sure that'll work out just peachy.

[whell]

Originally Posted by finnbow

Who said anything about encouraging or supporting the current migration? If you acknowledge that they're trying to escape assault, rape, robbery, and murder in their homeland, then you're obligated under our laws and treaties to give them asylum hearings.

The assault, rape, robbery etc. is what is happening on the trip from their home country through Mexico.

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

The assault, rape, robbery etc. is what is happening on the trip from their home country through Mexico.

It's so much worse in the places that they come from (e.g., San Pedro Sula, Honduras - the murder capital of the world) that they're willing to undertake this dangerous trip, just as boat people from Haiti or Cuba are willing to undertake the harrowing, shark-infested trip across the Florida straits.

[piece-itpete]

Originally Posted by finnbow

There's nothing in any UN treaties or international law saying that those offering asylum have the right to dictate rules to the refugees' countries of origin. Moreover, it's completely nonsensical. We can dictate to whomever we wish, but that doesn't guarantee any level of change in their culture or political system. Can we simply snap our fingers and make Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Somalia, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Mali, Afghanistan, the West Bank, etc. peaceful Jeffersonian democracies? I bet all of those countries are waiting with bated breath for us to issues such edicts that will immediately resolve all of their problems. While we're at it, somebody in Washington should issue an edict telling everybody in Chicago to stop shooting each other. I'm sure that'll work out just peachy.

We tend to agree. However, there are plenty saying we have to take in any folks who are fleeing the violent troubles in their home country, and that we need to fix why they are fleeing in the first place. I mentioned what I thought was the obvious conclusion of such thought. I am open to correction.

I do not believe edicts will change anybody, 'you can't legislate a man's heart'

Pete

[bobabode]

Originally Posted by whell

The assault, rape, robbery etc. is what is happening on the trip from their home country through Mexico.

Why do you think they are leaving their homes?

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

We tend to agree. However, there are plenty saying we have to take in any folks who are fleeing the violent troubles in their home country, and that we need to fix why they are fleeing in the first place. I mentioned what I thought was the obvious conclusion of such thought. I am open to correction.

I do not believe edicts will change anybody, 'you can't legislate a man's heart'

Pete

"(T)he homicide rate is stoked by the rivalry of the brutal street gangs, mostly descendants of gangs formed in Los Angeles and deported to Central America in the 1990s, including Mara Salvatrucha (MS) and the 18th Street gang. Their ranks are fed by the economic disaster that is Honduras and emboldened more recently by alliances with Mexican drug traffickers moving cocaine through the country."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Pedro_Sula#Crime

That worked out just fine.

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

We tend to agree. However, there are plenty saying we have to take in any folks who are fleeing the violent troubles in their home country, and that we need to fix why they are fleeing in the first place. I mentioned what I thought was the obvious conclusion of such thought. I am open to correction.

I do not believe edicts will change anybody, 'you can't legislate a man's heart'

Pete

Agreed so why do we have this insane idea that we can export democracy?

First we need to re-establish it here at home.

[donquixote99]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Agreed so why do we have this insane idea that we can export democracy?

First we need to re-establish it here at home.

Be careful what you agree with. "You can't legislate a man's heart" sounds suspiciously like the "you can't legislate morality" slogan used by opponents of civil rights laws.

What you can do, and what we needed to do, and did do, in the civil rights era, was legislate behavior, in our own country. This is what law is for.

The objection to fixing Hondouras, etc, should be 'you can't legislate in someone else's country,' not 'you can't legislate a man's heart.'