Americans Are No Better Than Mexicans

reply to post by SentientBeyondDesign



Ah yea.....just ask and they will tell you. Look at the exchange rate $ to paso...there are many many men up here working alone... without faimily..sending money back home.

reply to post by Logarock


Lol.

Typical America hating liberal douchebaggery.


Go tell it to Chavez.



How do you think Mexico was formed into what it is today? Do you mean to imply that the Spaniards all lived in peace and harmony amongst the Incas, the Aztecs etc? Was there no violence, no supplantation of culture?

How about Canada? What types of indigenous peoples inhabited that massive territory of land before the first whites came from Europe? Did they all live peacefully as well, or did some land grabbing and warmongering take place there as well?

And what happened to the old druidic tribes of early Europe at the hands of the Romans, the Anglos and the nations who now make up England, Ireland etc?

How about the Australian abboriginees?


To hear you quasi-educated apologists tell it, the United States is the only nation that was ever taken from an indigenous or native peoples, the only nation to ever support or harbor slavery, and the only nation to ever do anything wrong to anyone.

Do you know what was responsible for the destruction of original inhabitants, both in America and in Australia? Illegal immigration of Europeans!
By supporting unregulated immigration, you codemn americans to the same fate. Illegal immigration is capable of destroying whole countries, and every country has a right to defend itself, because lack of illegal immigration policy is what led to the demise of native americans!
What happened to native americans only strenghtens our position.

reply to post by JohnnyElohim


this is only my opinion...AMERICANS ARE BETTER THAN MEXICANS WHEN IT COMES DOWN TO HAVING ANYTHING TO DO WITH AMERICA! WAKE UP!!! This our country for a reason and unless you we will just hand back and say we are sorry, AMERICA WILL ALWAYS BE FOR AMERICANS!!!! GO BACK TO MEXICO!

Originally posted by Son of Will
With respect, it doesn't really matter how one "feels" if person A was born into a millionaire family, and person B was born in a slum. It sucks. Person B probably thinks that person A should help him, but you cannot legislate good will. If you do, you might as well toss our Constitution out the window.
[edit on 19-5-2010 by Son of Will]

Well enter person C who was not born a millionaire, nor born in a slum. Person C can be legislated to help person B by taxing the heck out of his hard-earned money, doing the bidding of both A and B in a way. The true recipients of the @#$%-sandwich in the US.
Did you make more $ than what is considered poverty level last year? If so, no free for you. Get back to work! There are needy people who need your assistance, and greedy people who need to fuel their private jets.

Originally posted by BlackOps719


Typical America hating liberal douchebaggery.


Go tell it to Chavez.



How do you think Mexico was formed into what it is today? Do you mean to imply that the Spaniards all lived in peace and harmony amongst the Incas, the Aztecs etc? Was there no violence, no supplantation of culture?

How about Canada? What types of indigenous peoples inhabited that massive territory of land before the first whites came from Europe? Did they all live peacefully as well, or did some land grabbing and warmongering take place there as well?

And what happened to the old druidic tribes of early Europe at the hands of the Romans, the Anglos and the nations who now make up England, Ireland etc?

How about the Australian abboriginees?


To hear you quasi-educated apologists tell it, the United States is the only nation that was ever taken from an indigenous or native peoples, the only nation to ever support or harbor slavery, and the only nation to ever do anything wrong to anyone.

Beyond missing my point your great fallacy is in thinking that Native Americans had to have been some kind of idealized utopian culture in order to avoid what was done to them.

Put it this way: if someone points out that I am well off because I beat the living hell out of some guy named Pete in an alley and took his wallet, is it a good rebuttal to say "Yeah, well Pete wasn't that great of a guy himself! He went about drinking and carousing, got himself into bar fights..."

I mean, really? That's your response?

[edit on 20-5-2010 by JohnnyElohim]

not gona read this thread but how bout...

Nobody is better than anybody, (though this could have two meanings, i mean it it in the sense that nobody is naturally better than anyone else on planet earth)

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by JohnnyElohim

 

There is no such thing as fighting fair, just ask Evander Holyfield. You made some fairly bad assumptions yourself. The Native Americans weren't a bunch of angels that lived in total harmony among each other before the Europeans arrived. There are plenty of accounts of wars between the tribes and it was a largely tribal form of governance. Tribe against tribe, some enslaving others, killing each other for land, they were humans too, and acted just as human as we all do. Angry Messiah's aren't nearly as effective as the compassionate ones, if effect was your goal.

This thread is nigh on dead, so I first want to say that I apologize if I've failed to respond to another contributor who has put real thought into their reply. If you are such a contributor, please U2U me and let me know that you'd like a response to your dialog. I will not ignore you.

Now to Jean Paul -

This is semantic. I'm not talking about fighting fair, I'm saying that accusing me of glibness in response to glibness was fair enough. Having said that, I'll repeat myself in rebutting the rest of your discussion above: why does it matter whether Native Americans were angelic? They were generally far more kind to one another (and indeed to the colonizers) than the colonizers were to them, but that is beside the point. It would not excuse their mistreatment if they were cannibals one and all. So there's that.

In reply to the messiah commentary, that is fine and good. I am no messiah. I am a messenger no different from you.

It is most certainly complicated, and oversimplifying the problem and then kicking the dog for barking without bothering to see just who that dog is barking at, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Not all who are angry realize who it is they are angry at, but some certainly do, and are no less appalled than you at the pointless bickering between people. Staying focused on the source of the problem and working in ways to fix that problem is the answer. You came in with what you thought was a solution, but solutions are not necessarily answers, and too often turn out to not be the answer at all. A salt solution will only work for specific problems and if used indiscriminately can do more harm than good. Answers are what are needed, not solutions. Firing a gun in the air may be a solution, but what goes up always comes down, and God forbid that bullet you shot in the air just to get attention did more harm than good.

I didn't oversimplify the problem. I said your comment was complicated to reply to because it encompassed several unrelated subjects and would have quite dramatically altered the primary content of the thread. I did not come in with what I thought was a solution. I'd hardly pretend such. I came in making a point that is well founded in fact but very hard to swallow: the accomplishments being "defended" by angry patriots are things won while standing upon the shoulders of giants who came before. And before those giants were mountains and hills stolen from others. We can talk about how this is the way of the world until the sun is low, but let's not ignore the truth of it.

And the bullet to which you refer? It was a blank.

If Mexicans are so great, why is their country a trash heap? End of story.

As for America, those who built it deserve it, and their descendants, the lawful citizens of this great nation. As for the Mexicans, they deserve what they have built, a drug boss, poverty stricken, corrupt estate. They did nothing to reform it and fled to the US instead of staying to resist and fight it. So, you get what you get.

IMO, illegals need to be arrested and sent back to Mexico. If they re-enter they should be sent to prison for six months every time they do so until they get it.

Mexicans don't deserve to just come across the border like locusts and eat the US out of house and home. All the crime they commit far outweighs the so called jobs they do for us, not to mention all the medical services they deprive legitimate US citizens from receiving costing us billions perhaps trillions of dollars.

Americans are better than Mexicans. If it were not so, Mexico would be a free and just society cleaned of it corruption and drug traffic, and poverty. But, they simply are not.

reply to post by JohnnyElohim


And what have you done? How do we benefit with you here?

reply to post by JohnnyElohim

This is semantic. I'm not talking about fighting fair, I'm saying that accusing me of glibness in response to glibness was fair enough.

My apologies to you Johnny, for misunderstanding what you meant by fair, and your willingness to accept the criticism over addressing glibness with glibness is duly noted.

I'll repeat myself in rebutting the rest of your discussion above: why does it matter whether Native Americans were angelic? They were generally far more kind to one another (and indeed to the colonizers) than the colonizers were to them, but that is beside the point. It would not excuse their mistreatment if they were cannibals one and all. So there's that.

This is precisely my point when you bring the Native American's into the picture while criticizing those who are angry with the current immigration situation. What does it matter how the people of The United States of America came to be "Americans"? If it does not matter how Native Americans comported themselves, then surely it does not matter how Europeans comported themselves. As to your argument that Native Americans were generally far more kinder to each other and the colonizers as well is either due to ignorance of the reality of that history, or a willful revision of history. As it is with all people, some Native Americans were more compassionate than others, and some Europeans were more compassionate with others., but as you say now, this is beside the point, even though your O.P. seemed to want to make that the point. So, there's that.

I didn't oversimplify the problem. I said your comment was complicated to reply to because it encompassed several unrelated subjects and would have quite dramatically altered the primary content of the thread.

Your O.P. most certainly did oversimplify the problem, and because it did, all that was really accomplished was to invite several people to attack Mexicans, as is evident by several posts in this thread. My comment that the source of the anger is due to a massive failure on the part of the federal government to protect the borders and enforce the immigration laws that Congress legislated is not even close to being unrelated subjects, and if it would have quite dramatically altered the primary content of the thread, that is only because your intentions with this thread is not to find practical answers to calm a nation, but instead to stoke the flames that are causing this anger.

I came in making a point that is well founded in fact but very hard to swallow: the accomplishments being "defended" by angry patriots are things won while standing upon the shoulders of giants who came before. And before those giants were mountains and hills stolen from others. We can talk about how this is the way of the world until the sun is low, but let's not ignore the truth of it.

It is just more revisionist history to first hopelessly attempt to frame the palpable anger over immigration as being nothing more than a fringe group of patriots, and then to ignore the more recent history of giants who have accomplished much in terms of technology, scientific discoveries, and simple ingenuity. This may be hard for you to swallow but both the Native Americans who predate The United States of America and the giants of whom we call our Founders did not in their wildest dreams imagine that this nation would place people on the moon, and explore the terrain of Mars. Neither the Native Americans of prehistory, nor our Founders predicted the rise of the internet that allows for this discourse, and your insistence on continually referring to lands stolen by these giants you speak of, while simultaneously dismissing any arguments that Native Americans spent a great deal of time stealing lands from each other is indicative of your disingenuous approach to this problem.

It is the task of the federal government to control the flow of immigration so that it does not affect this nations stability and general welfare adversely. Herein lies the problem, and attacking the angry for being angry and bringing in irrelevant points that you will admit to being irrelevant when your own arguments are used against you, then being as whimsical as you are, pointing to these irrelevant points when you feel satisfied you've effectively dismissed any irrelevancy when your argument is used against you, only points to your problems with logic. Even with internal logic the rules must remain consistent or the break in logic will be apparent.

And the bullet to which you refer? It was a blank.

It is quite clear to virtually all who have read this thread that you came in shooting blanks.

[edit on 20-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by JohnnyElohim


You're so right! We didn't build this nation.. no.. teepee dwelling Indians .. they built the Universities, the high-ways, the skyscrapers, our major cities, our industrial ingenuity, our massive war machine that dwarfs anyone elses, our constitution, our .. everything.. hell .. we just stole it allll from the Indians.

This kind of logic really is absurd.

reply to post by BlackOps719


Surely we cannot forget the Gauls as well, or the Saxons, or the Celts, or the Germanic Tribes, or eastern tribes, or even the indigenous people that sat on Rome before it became a city.

All over the World, every civilization sits on the past of another.. it's the Human way.

Originally posted by Jean Paul Zodeaux
reply to post by JohnnyElohim

 

This is precisely my point when you bring the Native American's into the picture while criticizing those who are angry with the current immigration situation. What does it matter how the people of The United States of America came to be "Americans"? If it does not matter how Native Americans comported themselves, then surely it does not matter how Europeans comported themselves. As to your argument that Native Americans were generally far more kinder to each other and the colonizers as well is either due to ignorance of the reality of that history, or a willful revision of history. As it is with all people, some Native Americans were more compassionate than others, and some Europeans were more compassionate with others., but as you say now, this is beside the point, even though your O.P. seemed to want to make that the point. So, there's that.

Hardly. Many arguments around these very parts posit that Mexicans are inferior because Mexico is a poorer country. They posit that Mexicans made it that way. History is much more complicated. Most countries find their way to wealth and power via somewhat despicable means and it is no different with the United States. Mexicans no more made their own fortunes in that regard than an 18 year old in the United States can take credit for Women's Suffrage. I am certain Mexicans of ages past would have happily displaced native populations and taken their resources, but in this case they were the native population and their resources were sacked by the Spanish. They simply haven't had the opportunity to profitably visit that misery on others in the same way that European colonizers did.

Incidentally, the accounts of Columbus and related parties almost universally describe the tribes they encountered as unbelievably open, friendly, and naive. So in this particular case the points being made about the savagery of Native Americans don't hold water, though again, those points aim to defeat a straw man in the first place.

Your O.P. most certainly did oversimplify the problem, and because it did, all that was really accomplished was to invite several people to attack Mexicans, as is evident by several posts in this thread. My comment that the source of the anger is due to a massive failure on the part of the federal government to protect the borders and enforce the immigration laws that Congress legislated is not even close to being unrelated subjects, and if it would have quite dramatically altered the primary content of the thread, that is only because your intentions with this thread is not to find practical answers to calm a nation, but instead to stoke the flames that are causing this anger.

After I post this reply I will revisit the paragraph I chose not to unpack. If I concur, I will reply. If I do not, I'll explain why in detail. I would suggest that you seem to spend a lot of your time speculating about my intent when I have stated it clearly enough in my replies to yourself and others. The point of the thread from my standpoint, however, was to address the hateful and nationalist prose I see every day. To me this is a larger issue than what the federal government is or is not doing. So in that sense your focus was different from mine and thus my commentary to that effect. Still, I can meet halfway, so give me an opportunity to revisit your earlier post and we'll see if there is seed for conversation there.

It is just more revisionist history to first hopelessly attempt to frame the palpable anger over immigration as being nothing more than a fringe group of patriots, and then to ignore the more recent history of giants who have accomplished much in terms of technology, scientific discoveries, and simple ingenuity. This may be hard for you to swallow but both the Native Americans who predate The United States of America and the giants of whom we call our Founders did not in their wildest dreams imagine that this nation would place people on the moon, and explore the terrain of Mars. Neither the Native Americans of prehistory, nor our Founders predicted the rise of the internet that allows for this discourse, and your insistence on continually referring to lands stolen by these giants you speak of, while simultaneously dismissing any arguments that Native Americans spent a great deal of time stealing lands from each other is indicative of your disingenuous approach to this problem.

We obviously do not see eye to eye. Of course that's to be expected when you set out to explain my motivations to me instead of listening to what I tell you about my thoughts. I am absolutely framing the anger as ill founded and ill placed. I am further suggesting that we inherit neither the nobility nor the viciousness of our ancestors. "We", in this sense, being every citizen of every nation. I am also identifying the over the top anger I see with the same type of unhealthy, unquestioning nationalism that I happily lambast. I agree with Einstein when he said "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." The collective myth of manifest destiny and the collective forgetting of where we got our power is an incubator for this disease.

And Revisionist? How so? Did you write the constitution? Did you work to end slavery? Did you raze Native American encampments and destroy their crops? My point is that those uttering these harsh words hardly have themselves to thank for the state of the country they are so misguidedly defending. In fact their defense of America is doing more to harm than to help.

[Continued]

[Continued]

It is the task of the federal government to control the flow of immigration so that it does not affect this nations stability and general welfare adversely. Herein lies the problem, and attacking the angry for being angry and bringing in irrelevant points that you will admit to being irrelevant when your own arguments are used against you, then being as whimsical as you are, pointing to these irrelevant points when you feel satisfied you've effectively dismissed any irrelevancy when your argument is used against you, only points to your problems with logic. Even with internal logic the rules must remain consistent or the break in logic will be apparent.

I don't think you've done much to show an error in my logic. Presumably you are referring to me admitting that I was glib and dramatic. That is not a fundamental error in logic, it is arguably an error in my choice of rhetoric. To suggest that it backfired and for me to agree that it did hardly equates to general issues with logic or a successful attack mounted on my statements about American history. It's not that my points are irrelevant, it's that your straw men are irrelevant. It was a good try, though.

It is quite clear to virtually all who have read this thread that you came in shooting blanks.

Oh, snap. I guess I "got served". But surely you see the irony in criticizing me for fighting "glibness with glibness" while you joyfully insert such barbs in your rebuttals.

reply to post by JohnnyElohim

Many arguments around these very parts posit that Mexicans are inferior because Mexico is a poorer country.

I don't know where you hail from, but I live in area filled with El Salvadorean's, many of whom are undocumented and terrified of deportation, but also many of whom posit that Mexicans are inferior, and for many reasons outside of the wealth of that country. I spent fifteen years tending bar, and throughout that time I was expected to listen to a gazillion billion bajillion racial jokes that posited how Mexicans, Blacks, Pollock's, Italians, and the Irish are inferior, for various reasons. I have been called a dumb Irish Mick on numerous occasions. It didn't begin with the Mexicans, and it sadly won't end there. To pretend that the anger of immigration today is nothing more than superiority complexes is to pretend you yourself are somehow superior to all who are angry and can easily dismiss their anger as being nothing more than a lame racial joke.

That is not a fundamental error in logic, it is arguably an error in my choice of rhetoric.

Rhetoric, my friend, is nothing more than form and style, and if you believe that style over substance is the best approach then this is your belief. Even so, there is good rhetoric, and there is empty rhetoric. A is A is merely rhetoric, but it is damn good rhetoric. Most people posit that Mexicans are inferior is rhetoric, but not as good as A is A.

History is much more complicated.

And yet you have offered up nothing more than simplistic generalizations of history, and in the matter of most recent history, just simply ignore it.

Most countries find their way to wealth and power via somewhat despicable means and it is no different with the United States.

More simplifications of a history you yourself admit is much more complicated.

Mexicans no more made their own fortunes in that regard than an 18 year old in the United States can take credit for Women's Suffrage.

This is what you call logic? Any person who obtains wealth by earning it has every right to claim responsibility for that, and every person who obtained wealth through plunder, can fully expect to be held responsible for that. What does any of that have to do with Women Suffrage?

I am certain Mexicans of ages past would have happily displaced native populations and taken their resources, but in this case they were the native population and their resources were sacked by the Spanish.

Certain are you? Mexico is filled with the ancient ruins of Olmec, Mayan, and Aztec ruins, and the people who inhabited those ruins did not call themselves Mexicans, but rather Olmec's, Mayan's and Azteca's. The Olmec's vanished somewhere around 400 B.C. Then came the Teotihuacan, the Zapotecs and Mixtecs of Monte Alban, the Maya of Yucatan, the Toltecs, Aztecs, and dozens of other smaller tribes. Of these ancient peoples there were many who engaged in the practice of human ritual sacrifice as a religious belief. In 1519 the Spanish explorer Hernan Cortez stumbled upon the Aztecs and so began the Spanish conquest and the plunder of the Aztecs gold. What followed was a caste system where Espanoles (Spaniards born in Spain), were at the top of the hierarchy, criollos (Mexican-born, but with Spanish blood), next in line, mestizos (Spanish and Indian), and finally the indigenes, the Indians.

By the time Napoleon conquered Spain in 1808, the elites in Mexico began talk of self governance and autonomy, an idea rooted in precedence in the Revolution of 1776. Mexico finally gained that independence in 1821. Yet, for Mexico, their troubles had only just begun, and their very first President, General Santa Ana, unlike the renowned George Washington, saw his legacy falter after loosing half of Mexico to The United States. Santa Ana was exiled, and replaced with Ignacio Comonfort, who then abdicated and gave rise to Benito Juarez a Mestizo, who took a liberal view of constitutions, and in doing so enraged the wealthy land owners which brought about a civil war known as The War of Reform, and while Juarez eventually won that war, he did so at a price, and that price was overwhelming debt. This debt looked like opportunity to Napoleon III, who sent from France to Mexico, the Archduke of Austria, Maximilian, who rapidly took the country, and sort of like Bush's heralded "Mission Accomplished" soon discovered what it meant to fight insurgencies.

Maximilian actually fell in love with Mexico during his rule, and instituted his own liberal reforms, that again enraged the wealthy and Napoleon abandoned him, leaving him vulnerable and eventually Juarez was able to regain ground, and finally retook Mexico City in 1867, and executed Maximilian. In 1871, Porfirio Diaz, ran against Juarez in that Presidential election, lost to Juarez but five years later overthrew the government and instituted his own tyranny that lasted close to forty years. Diaz sold much of Mexico's industries to foreigners and brutally suppressed and oppressed his political opposition. By 1910, Francisco I. Madero, with the help of Emiliano Zapata, managed to get elected as President, but was assasinated by Victoriano Huerta who was his very own military commander. Zapata, along with Venustiano Carranza, General Alvaro Obregon, and the much beloved Pancho Villa, led a bloody and hard fought revolution against Huerta, that led to Carranza assuming the Presidency, but that was challenged by both Zapata and Villa who managed to drive Carranza out of Mexico City, and Carranza and Obregon retreated to Vera Cruz.

Villa and Zapata, being the renowned party people they were, never got around to organizing a government, and Carranza and Obregon were soon able to recapture the capital. Once Villa was diminished in power and Zapata eliminated, Carranza took the Presidency, but by the next election it was clear that Obregon would win and so the power struggle invited both to turn on each other, and eventually Zapata, Villa, and Carranza were killed, leaving Obregon the last man standing. Eventually Obregon was assassinated and this gave rise to the PRI, which is essentially the single party that has ruled Mexico ever since.

Now that was an oversimplification of history, and yet far more complex than your certainty.

They simply haven't had the opportunity to profitably visit that misery on others in the same way that European colonizers did.

It is not quite clear who you are referring to when you say "they" particularly when you contrast them with Europeans, given they are a caste system of Europeans, mixed breed of European and Indians, and Indians, and here is where your gross oversimplifications become ludicrous, but beyond that, the simple history lesson I provided suggests "they" had much more opportunity afforded them than you are willing to allow. Where some see crisis, others see opportunity, and therein lies the difference between opportunism and victimology. Or as the Marxist would like to frame it, exploitation and labor.

Incidentally, the accounts of Columbus and related parties almost universally describe the tribes they encountered as unbelievably open, friendly, and naive. So in this particular case the points being made about the savagery of Native Americans don't hold water, though again, those points aim to defeat a straw man in the first place.

Columbus never landed in North America, so while you smugly declare the savagery of of Native Americans as a "Straw Man Argument", while it was you who declared "Americans" as being people of European decent who inhabit North America, and it is commonly accepted that Native Americans is a term used to describe the various tribes of North America, but even in its broadest sense, encompassing all of the America's, it is folly to think, and even by Columbus' own accounts in his own diary supports the understanding, that "Native Americans" were hostile to each other and regularly enslaved each other. Regardless, Columbus is not one of those Europeans who had any relations with the indigenous people of North America.

After I post this reply I will revisit the paragraph I chose not to unpack. If I concur, I will reply. If I do not, I'll explain why in detail. I would suggest that you seem to spend a lot of your time speculating about my intent when I have stated it clearly enough in my replies to yourself and others. The point of the thread from my standpoint, however, was to address the hateful and nationalist prose I see every day. To me this is a larger issue than what the federal government is or is not doing. So in that sense your focus was different from mine and thus my commentary to that effect. Still, I can meet halfway, so give me an opportunity to revisit your earlier post and we'll see if there is seed for conversation there.

You are entitled to your opinion, but you increasingly make clear that this is all you have to offer, merely opinion from a woefully subjective view that quite willingly dismisses law, and factual history in order to maintain your narrow view of a problem that encompasses all of The U.S., yet you would like to meet half way, and I am not one who believes much in compromise, but if half way means a meeting of the minds, then I am game.

We obviously do not see eye to eye. Of course that's to be expected when you set out to explain my motivations to me instead of listening to what I tell you about my thoughts. I am absolutely framing the anger as ill founded and ill placed.

You have framed the anger as being racist and jingoistic, refusing to allow that much of the anger is directed towards a failed federal government.



[edit on 21-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

reply to post by JohnnyElohim

I am further suggesting that we inherit neither the nobility nor the viciousness of our ancestors. "We", in this sense, being every citizen of every nation.

A good deal of people in the U.S. wholly reject any notions of nobility, and certainly the Constitution for the United States of America rejects it, but this is law you would like to reject as irrelevant, and why not? For every person who rejects nobility, there is perhaps at least one that embraces it and would refer to the Kennedy administration as Camelot, or regularly refer to the President as the "leader of the free world". If nobility is to have any validity at all, it is generally accepted that it is inherited. Viciousness, on the other hand, is not inherited, but is an individual choice that people make.

I am also identifying the over the top anger I see with the same type of unhealthy, unquestioning nationalism that I happily lambast.

The nationalism you speak to is a legend, and we live in a time where several states openly speak of secession, and many threads in this site openly debate its reality or fantasy. When Bush II ran for President the first time, many threatened to leave the U.S. if he was elected, and the second go around they swore they would really leave if it happened again, and then when the choice was Obama, the other side chattered the same empty rhetoric. Some kind of nationalism that is.

I agree with Einstein when he said "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." The collective myth of manifest destiny and the collective forgetting of where we got our power is an incubator for this disease.

Uh-huh...you don't seem to be in much agreement with Einstein when he says; "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.", as you continually go for the simplest possible explanation. Manifest destiny is not a collective myth, it is a doctrine of expansionism and was first coined by John L. Sullivan in 1845 as a battle cry to annex Texas, and was subsequently used to describe the Polk administrations plans for expansion.

And Revisionist? How so?

(Sigh)

Did you write the constitution?

You haven't even spoken to the Constitution until now, and just because I didn't write it doesn't mean I can't understand it. I didn't write Hamlet either, but I get that play. I didn't make the Godfather film, but I understand it just the same. (Sigh)

Did you work to end slavery?

What makes you think slavery has ended, and why would you assume I don't fight it daily?

Did you raze Native American encampments and destroy their crops?

Well, when I was younger I spun my car out of control when driving through the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico and wound up slamming into the side of a house, but that "Indian" was pretty forgiving of me, and allowed me to make payments to him which took me over a year and half. His son and I became pretty good friends and still talk from time to time. It may not rank with the likes of Custer and the Calvary of yore, but it sort of made a big stink when I did it.

My point is that those uttering these harsh words hardly have themselves to thank for the state of the country they are so misguidedly defending.

Ohhhhhhhhh! I get it now! What your saying is that since I didn't write the Constitution, I have no right to the INALIENABLE RIGHTS protected by that Constitution, and since I didn't "free" the black slaves mostly imported from Africa, (presumably this is what you meant by "end slavery"), then I have no right to declare that black people have INALIENABLE RIGHTS, and since I didn't slaughter indigenous people, I have no right to live here. Yeah okay, we can call that logic if you want. Would you like to ride my unicorn later on?

In fact their defense of America is doing more to harm than to help.

What defense are you talking about? The U.S. federal government has willingly sacrificed defense in order to build a global empire, and the states have willingly sacrificed defense in exchange for federal funding. Defense? Don't you understand this is what has so many angry, that there is no defense?

I don't think you've done much to show an error in my logic.

Yeah, well crazy people usually fail to see how they are acting insane too.

Presumably you are referring to me admitting that I was glib and dramatic.

Presumption is the very foundation of arrogance, unless of course, your presumption is correct. I hope you can understand why I will call you arrogant.

That is not a fundamental error in logic, it is arguably an error in my choice of rhetoric. To suggest that it backfired and for me to agree that it did hardly equates to general issues with logic or a successful attack mounted on my statements about American history. It's not that my points are irrelevant, it's that your straw men are irrelevant. It was a good try, though.

Logic is a science that deals with principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration. It is a formal principle of reasoning. A straw man argument is an informal fallacy that misrepresents the opponents position. Let's take a look at this so called logic you claim to possess; you begin by asserting that the title of your thread would be incendiary to some readers, but your title is quite misleading in relation to the rest of your post. I myself entered thinking I was about to read a reasoned post on the equality of humanity under the law, and in terms of rights, instead what I got for my time was screed of vitriol that sought to declare immigration laws as nationalistic and a racist polemic.

You offer no reasoned debate in your first paragraph, merely an attack on immigration laws as being nationalistic and racist. As if a nation does not have any right to control the flow of immigration. Indeed, you have now quite insistently argued that this fact of law has no bearing in your thread, and call it a "strawman" argument. However, if you are going to discuss immigration and ignore the laws set in place to deal with immigration then you are not offering reasoned debate, but merely your opinion, and that opinion is polemic itself.

Yet, you go further and argue that people today can not claim responsibility for their own wealth. You offer no substantial evidence to support this claim and instead rely upon fallacy. In an earlier post you intimate that I had engaged in an Ad Hominem Attack on you. I let that go simply because your original post was so rife with Ad Hominem Attacks I saw no reason to defend myself to one who was merely accusing me of his own crimes, but let's be honest here, insisting that people in the U.S. have no right to lay claim to taking responsibility for their own wealth is an attack and an Ad Hominem one at that, and as such a fallacious argument. To call it logic is to offer pretzel logic as logic.

You have more recently accused me of using Straw Man Arguments against you, yet it is you who has offered up caricatures and exaggerated versions of the people you claim you hoped to raise to a level of reasoned debate. You engage in the fallacy of special pleading, ignoring law in order to be right. You offer up Excluded Middles claiming it must be this or that, when in fact, when pushed upon the matter further you will admit it is much more complex than that, and then when called on that you will backpedal and argue that it is only complex because the law I reference is "irrelevant" to a debate about immigration.

You engage in the fallacy of the General Rule, assuming that what is true in general is true in every possible case. You quite clearly engage in Reductive Fallacy oversimplifying the problem of immigration as being nothing more than jingoism and racism. You rely upon Psychogenic Fallacy in order to declare the anger of people in the U.S. racist and jingoistic, you rely upon the Argument of the Beard, insisting that since some people are racist, and some are nationalistic and even some are both that there can be no other options, but this is as ludicrous as saying that because there is the color gray, black and white have no validity.

You rely upon Argument of Dismissal, never explaining why immigration law has nothing to do with the anger of people, You attempt to Poison the Well by arguing that since we didn't write the Constitution, since we didn't "free" the slaves, and since we didn't kill and rob the indigenous people, any claims to owning our own wealth is spurious. I would accuse you of Argument by Emotive Language except your emotive language did not work to gain much support.

You rely on Argument From False Authority, pretending you are the master of logic and your opponents are all fallacious, which is much like attempting to save a dying man, not because you are a doctor, but because you play one on T.V. You have used several bad analogies of which I have addressed, you confuse correlation and causation, you rely upon causal reductionism, left wing cliche thinking, which is just more bandwagon arguments, fallacy of composition, argument ad nauseum, as if repeating yourself over and over again will finally achieve merit, argument not by half truth, but a fraction of that, argument by selective observation, argument by generalization, non sequiturs, equivocation, error of fact, hypothesis contrary to fact, internal contradiction, affirming the consequent, and argument by laziness, but you have the audacity to declare this logic, and any reasoned debate is dismissed as fallacious.

Oh snap! You just got served again.


[edit on 21-5-2010 by Jean Paul Zodeaux]

To this point, my colleagues have brought us to the crux of the debate: I have presented certain aspects of United States history as unequivocal fact, but I have not outlined the specific events that inform my perspective. In the interest of concision, I'll focus on the relationship between Mexico and the United States. Therefore, and without further ado -

1848 - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed. Following the United States' conquest of Mexico terminating the Mexican-American War, 55% of it's national territory is claimed in a settlement to end hostilities. If including Texas, more than 66% of Mexican territory was claimed in the conquest. The Treaty specifies that Mexicans residing within the newly won United States territories retain their rights to property. [1]

1851 - 1861 - The California Land Act is passed to resolve disputes regarding Mexican Americans retaining property in California. Regions of California with the largest Mexican American populations are taxed more heavily than any other region of the state. The Surveyor of General Claims Office is established to resolve disputes but is unable to process claims rapidly enough to prevent forceful land take-overs. Mexican Americans resorting to violence to defend the land awarded to them by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo are labeled bandits. [2], [3], [4]

1929-1939 - As a consequence of economic pressure caused by the Great Depression, more than one million Mexican Americans are forcibly deported in what is known as the "Mexican Repatriation". It bears noting, however, that 60% of the "repatriated" Mexican Americans were in fact United States citizens. Due process is not adhered to during the deportation of these individuals. [5], [6]

1942-1964 - The Bracero Program arranges to import temporary workers from Mexico to the United States. With World War II underway, the demand for manual labor has risen again. By 1945 more than 125,000 braceros have been imported for unskilled or semi-skilled labor. The railroad program which imported approximately 75,000 of these braceros is ended in 1945, but the United States agriculture community requested and was granted extensions to the program. After numerous extensions and much criticism, the program is ended in 1964. Workers deported at the end of the Bracero Program continue to struggle to recover deductions taken from their pay which were guaranteed to them in addition to the balances of savings accounts which they were guaranteed to receive upon their return to Mexico. [7]

1954 - Modeled after the Mexican Repatriation and in the midst of the Bracero Program, Operation Wetback coordinates 1,075 Border Patrol and Law Enforcement agents to "crack down" on illegal Mexican immigrants. Despite the standing interpretation of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, children of illegal immigrants who are American citizens themselves are forcibly deported regardless of the wishes of themselves or their parents. It is estimated that almost one million Mexican Americans, legal or not, returned to Mexico to avoid the operation. Several hundred thousand were taken into custody and forcibly deported. [8]

So in summary, the United States engaged in a war of aggression against Mexico resulting in possession of half to two-thirds of her territory. The United States in the treaty which concluded the war made certain commitments which were only partially honored. When the United States was in need of inexpensive labor, it instituted programs to legalize the importation of Mexicans. Later, when the economy was ebbing, the United States forcibly deported many citizen and non-citizen Mexicans under both legal and extra-legal means. From the perspective of labor and possession of territory, then, it can be said that Mexicans are Americans indeed.

[1] www.ourdocuments.gov...
[2] www.pbs.org...
[3] www.pbs.org...
[4] academic.udayton.edu...
[5] Johnson, Kevin (Fall 2005). "The Forgotten “Repatriation” of Persons of Mexican Ancestry and Lessons for the “War on Terror”". Davis, California: Pace Law Review.
[6] Navarro, Sharon Ann and Mejia, Armando Xavier, Latino Americans and Political Participation Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2004. ISBN: 1-85109-523-3. page 277.
[7] Navarro, Armando, Mexicano political experience in occupied Aztlán (2005)
[8] www.csmonitor.com...

[edit on 22-5-2010 by JohnnyElohim]