Billionaires: It's good to import foreign workers

Jul 9, 2014 1:26:44 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Why do you believe that no one would choose to become a law-enforcement officer, if we began prosecuting those who obtain evidence illegally? Do you really believe that just about everyone in law enforcement is corrupt?

As for the old (somewhat hackneyed) adage that it is better to set 10 guilty people free than to convict just one innocent person, I am a bit ambivalent: Those 10 guilty people (depending upon what their crimes actually were) may create many more victims if they are allowed to go free. So it is not just a matter of our seeking justice, in the abstract. (Still, I would agree that it is especially egregious to strip a person of his or her freedom wrongly; which is why the bar for conviction in a criminal trial is much higher than it is in a civil trial: beyond any reasonable doubt, rather than merely a preponderance of the evidence.)

Jurors should surely not be made subject to criminal prosecution if they vote to convict, and the defendant later turns out to have been innocent.  It is very doubtful, in such cases, that any malice was intended; it was simply a mistake, however horrid its effect.  And if we were to seek revenge upon those who have committed such errors, prospective jurors would be even more inclined than they currently are to try to weasel out of doing jury duty; and, failing that, would almost certainly vote to acquit in all cases, as a method of self-protection. 

It is highly doubtful, in my opinion, that Israel will ever agree to relinquish the Golan Heights to Syria.  And for good reason:  Why throw away the (militarily advantageous) high ground?  (Note:  The "land-for-peace gambit has been tried many times by Israel--with no discernable success.  It has given up land--and it really does not have much to spare--but has never obtained peace, as a result.)   

Even if one truly considered the UN to be authoritative (and I personally would be much more inclined to accept the dictums of a kindergartner than the dictums of the UN, as any sort of authority), the fact remains that Israel did not obtain any land through an act of aggression in 1967.  It was a purely defensive war. And the aggressor states should not be subsequently rewarded. (I know: We have been through this previously.)    

I would suggest that the violations of the accused Constutional Rights are far more extensive than you might believe and it's not because the law enforcement officers or prosecutors are necessarily nefarious in their actions. It's simply because they aren't all that knowledgeable about those Constitutional Rights but because of the "exclusionary" rule the "evidence" is merely suppressed during the trial. If we started prosecuting law enforcement and prosecutors for every bit of evidence that is currently excluded because of a violations of the Rights of the Accused the problem would be dramatic. As it is they get a "pass" in the vast majority of cases because of the exclusionary rule. Remember that they cannot claim "ignorance of the law" if they violate it unintentionlly so the fact that they don't necessarily know that they're violating the Rights of the Accused cannot be used as an excuse.

According to Mosha Dayan, the Israeli military commander on the Syrian border, it was Israel that was provoking the conflict with the Syrians. Israel was doing this exclusively (according to Dayan) to rationalize an invasion of Syria for the express purpose of acquiring the Golan Heights. Even after the invasion of Egypt and Jordan the Syrians never attempted to invade Israel and it agreed to a UN peace agreement and had stopped all military defensive actions against Israel before Israel invades Syria. Dayan, and the Israeli politicians, knew this and Dayan argued against invading because Syria was no longer any "threat" (and had never been a threat) to Israel but he we just the General and orders are orders so he invaded Syria.

The claim that Israel engage in a war of self-defense against Egypt and Jordan has long since been debunked going back to the 1970's when even several top Israeli government leaders of the time admitted it was BS. It was always about the acquisition of territory because Israel knew that Egypt had no intention whatsoever to ever invade Israel, and in fact, Egypt was militarily incapable of invading Israel in 1967. Israel has spies deep inside the Egyptian military and was very much aware of the fact that while Egypt had moved military units into the Sinai that it was not in a position to invade Israel and that it was assuming defensive military positions in anticipation of an Israeli invasion. Jordan got sucked into the conflict because of a defensive (not offensive) military pact between Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. When Israel invaded Egypt the Jordanian military responded with defensive artillery attacks against Israeli military positions but at no time did it ever make any offesive moves with it's military to invade Israel.   

There is far less legitimacy to the Israeli invasions in 1967 than there was to the Nazi invasion of Austria in 1938. The Zionist Jews in the Israeli government considered all of Palestine to be the Israeli "homeland" and many Zionists still adhere to that belief today believing that the Palenstinians should be force out of Palestine completely. Unlike the Nazis that at least had some limited support in Austria for the subjugation of Austria under German control in 1938 there was no such support in the Palestinian territories that had fallen under the adminstrative control of Egypt and Jordan after the creation of Israel. Lacking a "political" like the Nazi Germans (that used a coup d'état by the Austrian Nazi Party) that allowed the German military to enter Austria, the Israelis only had the option of an all-out invasion as the means to their end of acquiring Palestinian territory.    

As history has shown since 1967 Israel had done exactly what it set out to do in 1967 and that is to occupy the territory it acquired by military force in the 1967 invasion in violation of the Laws of Nations at the end of WW II.  

I would point out a flaw in your argument of "land for peace" by analogy.

I gang breaks into a person's home and imprisons the family. That gang later withdraws from one bedroom but keeps it surrounded and a couple of the family members are allowed to live in that bedroom. Should those in the bedroom and the rest of the house simply give up trying to retake control of their home? That is exactly what's going on between the Palenstinians and the Israelis today.

All of Palestine, including Israel itself, was the home of the "Palestinians" at the end of WW I and the Palestinians were Arabs (predominately), Jews, and Christians. The "Zionist" Jews from Europe were a "gang" that came to Palestine with the express purpose of "taking over the home" that was Palestine from the "family" that lived there. They were partially successful in 1948 as they managed to take over part of it using acts of terrorism, coercion, and military force to accomplish that. It has taken slightly more than 60 years for the "homeowners" (i.e. Palestinians) to accept they they lost part of their "home(land)" to the European Jews that invaded but they are willing to accept that today. What they're not willing to accept, and that they shouldn't have to accept, is giving even more of their Home(land) to the Zionist Jews.

It's time for you to study the history and stop believing the Zionist propaganda.

Jul 10, 2014 1:09:15 GMT pjohns1873 said:

I believe you are confusing "disparate impact" (which, admittedly, does exist in the proposed policies) with actual racism.  (Yes, almost all of those who would be impacted by our aggressively sealing off our southern border are brown-skinned; but that does not necessarily imply that it is because of their skin color that many of us believe in enforcing our national sovereignty. And any Republican's attempting to ensure that any group that votes in huge proportion--roughly 90-95 percent--for the Democratic candidates are not allowed to vote illegally, is hardly an attempt to "disenfranchise" anyone.)       

To reiterate what I have noted previously:  Yes, the status quo ante in American medical care was imperfect; and I would prefer certain reforms to a return to what had existed pre-ObamaCare.  But even the status quo ante was preferable to ObamaCare, in my opinion; and in the opinion of a majority (not merely a plurality) of Americans, according to a recent poll. 

Your argument is that all of the Jim Crow voting laws prior to the Voting Rights Act weren't racist but instead were merely disproportionately affecting African-American voters.

When there are GOP leaders that have expressly stated that the purpose of the GOP sponsored voting laws were to disenfranchise minority voters I tend to believe them. I'd call that "racist" even if it was done for political reasons (i.e. minorities tend to vote Democrat).

Congress identified the problem of the uninsured in America in 1948 (as I recall) and nothing was done about it for 60 years and when it came up in 2009 the Republicans offered no solutions to it. What would your recommendation to "insure the uninsured" have been?

Jul 13, 2014 23:34:24 GMT pjohns1873 said:

Jul 13, 2014 20:35:30 GMT ShivaTD said:

Your argument is that all of the Jim Crow voting laws prior to the Voting Rights Act weren't racist but instead were merely disproportionately affecting African-American voters.

When there are GOP leaders that have expressly stated that the purpose of the GOP sponsored voting laws were to disenfranchise minority voters I tend to believe them. I'd call that "racist" even if it was done for political reasons (i.e. minorities tend to vote Democrat).

Congress identified the problem of the uninsured in America in 1948 (as I recall) and nothing was done about it for 60 years and when it came up in 2009 the Republicans offered no solutions to it. What would your recommendation to "insure the uninsured" have been?

Uh, say again?

When did I ever assert that the Jim Crow laws of an earlier era were merely a matter of disparate impact?  (I can still remember--as you presumably can, also--those horribly odious signs that festooned public restrooms and drinking fountains:  "White Only" and "Colored Only.")  

We obviously have different definitions of racism.  I see racism as either (1) the belief that one race is inherently superior to another race--in effect, that the other race is almost subhuman--or (2) a seething hatred of another race.  But I do not see racism in a desire to ensure that those who vote almost unanimously in favor of the opposing party do not get to vote illegally. 

As for my "recommendation" as concerning how best to "insure the uninsured":  I (quite proudly) have no such recommendation.

Please allow me to reiterate that point, as I would not wish to be unclear:  I simply have no burning desire to "insure the uninsured."  Period.  (That is entirely each individual's responsibility--not the government's responsibility.  And I do not take such an expansive view of the US Constitution as to suppose that the so-called "General Welfare Clause"--Article 1, Section 8--was ever intended, by the Founders, to refer to any such matter.)    

I referred exclusively to the Jim Crow voting laws (not segregation laws) where tactics such as literacy tests and poll taxes were expressly created to disenfranchise African-American voters. These laws did not state "Blacks can't vote" but instead were based upon demographic studies that showed that Black would be disproportionately affected by the laws and denied the Right to Vote. That is literally no different than the Voter ID laws today that are based upon demographic studies that show that 25% of African-American citizens of voting age do not have government issued ID's and can't afford to purchase the documents necessary in many cases that are required to obtain the ID. Remember that voter impersonation at the polls, the only thing that the Voter ID laws address, is not a problem in the United States so the laws have no legitimate purpose when it comes to election fraud that is caused by other reasons.

While the unnecessary deaths of 45,000 Americans annually because they lack insurance may have no importance to you I would state it is a serious problem that Congress initially identified many decades ago. That's literally more than the actual combat fatalities of the entire Vietnam War (about 40,000 of the 55,000 plus US military deaths in Vietnam were directly combat related). There is no rational reason why people should die simply because they don't have and probably can't afford health insurance in the United States.