Libertarians should oppose the Arizona Immigrant Laws

A huge chunk, if not the majority, of illegal immigrants who are here are honestly just trying to make a better life for themselves. One of my best friend's boyfriend literally swam here from Honduras so he could make money for his six siblings and mother back home. The only problem is he can't return because he'll probably be killed by gangs.

So I can see how it's inconvenient for us, but at the same time we have to keep our minds open to their perspective, Libertarian or no. I'm not a very politically savvy person, so I'm not quite sure how to maintain the proper balance, but I'm sure there's a way to do it. We just have to keep working and searching. I do think we should look out for ourselves first but there has to be a way to help them in the process.

 

yeah most people dont think that way, sadly. You see your friend's boyfriend and probably respect the hell out of him for what he went through to build a better life for his family. Most people look at him and see some brown skinned guy who came to america to take some white guy's dishwashing job.

I honestly think a lot of the debate rises from racism. Most Americans aren't willing to look past the racial stereotypes centered around Mexicans. I see this every day because racism against mexicans seems to be the only racism where its still acceptable to be vocal about it. I think if people actually took the time to sit back and think about the hardships that immigrants go through, and the motivation behind wanting to come to America in the first place, there wouldnt be such a hard line when it comes to the immigration debate.

 

So...we steal land, then fence it off and say that other people are here illegally. Not only that, but we make sure that the neighboring country doesn't develop into an economic power so we can have nice cheap labor and a place to dump our toxic waste...then people get pissed off when people come across the absurd 'border' and make money to survive by picking cucumbers for a buck an hour. Libertarians should be humanitarians - there is enough wealth in this country where we could share and make the world a better place. The problem is, the rich have to give up being richer - which they won't.

 

@ Meliai;

Yep, that hadn't occured to me before, though now that you say it it's obvious, and true. We'd be the same toward black peolpe (and some are regardless) if they weren't constantly holding the slavery issue over our heads. I really think people just aren't advanced enough to figure this out. (And by 'this' I mean the racism issue that people just can't let go of)

@ Neophyte;

Nearly everybody stole land. It was a long time ago. We're not doing it now, we're not trying to steal our land. America is far, far from perfect but I believe our foundation, the reason we were created and the main purpose for our existence, is pretty decent. I do believe we should help out with the immigration problem, the poor Latin countries' problems, but we have to work on our own first. We can just let them pour in here and fix their lives for them. They have to fix themselves also. I'm all for helping them, but I don't believe they should all just move here because things are better. They need to make things better, just as we do.

As for what Libertarians should or should not be, that's irrelevant. Libertarian is simply a term. Terms and ideas change, and if a person claims to be mainly Libertarian, that does not mean every single one of their views should fall strictly within the dictionary principals and definitions of the word.

 

hmm . . . it was "a long time ago", and, apparently, when it was happening ["our foundation"], it was "pretty decent" . . .

mildly confused?

 

Hm, sorry, I just mean that I guess the reason America was created is a good one; people who refused to put up with oppressive crap just up and became self-sufficient. Like I said, we're not perfect and we've fucked some things up (especially lately) but I think it's a better reason to steal land than the reasons many other countries had for it.

That wasn't the main point though, it was just on my mind. I just woke up so I guess I'm not making sense, haha

 

No nation has stolen land. They won it through warfare. That has been the way of the world throughout recorded history.

Only now, in the past half century, has the international community agreed to halt the practice of changing borders through warfare. Though, a few still haven't agreed.

 

Stealing is stealing, whether you do it via war or genocide, as in the Americas.

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Then, what country is not stolen? Where does history begin?

 

So if a person is just trying to make a better life for himself and his family it is OK to break the law of another country to do it? That argument could be used by every crook. I was just trying to make a better life for myself. Get real. If any groups of people have a right to complain it is the native Americans who predated by hundreds of years anyone who came here from Europe. We are still having a problem with the word "illegal". It is the illegality of the act that is at question here. The only way to make illegal, legal is to go back to the place where legal became illegal and start over, that means all illegals and their families must return to the their country of origin and start over. It is that simple. Nothing to do about race or any of the other emotional tirades.
Illegal is illegal.

 

That doesn't make it right, moral or the civilized thing to do.

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Who said it was any of those things? I said it was the way of the world throughout recorded history (and even before that actually).

Until recently. The world (most of it) now seems to have come to an agreement that the days of changing borders are to end.

However, I wouldn't bet on that being a permanent agreement.

 

that's what the illegal aliens columbus, de leon, and coronado thought; that's what the settlers of jamestown and plymouth colony thought

if it was good enough for them, it's good enough for today's central american immigrants

this time we're the indians!

[i always wanted to be an indian]

 

oh yes, now that we have set things up just right, now we want to "keep it"

except, the borders we have suck, and they suck because of us [and our european "friends"]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Conference_(1884)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Conference,_1919

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India

[don't just read the wiki, read a book]

a few haven't agreed because they didn't get a say; no one asked the peoples of africa if they wanted the borders they got stuck with

the borders of the balkans? the parts of the old ottoman empire? india and pakistan? sorry, you people who live there have nothing to say about what country you get to live in, who lives next door, who rules you...

please note that i am only addressing a few egregious examples from the "international community", ignoring the mideast quagmire [lawrence vs. balfour], ignoring amerikkka and "manifest destiny" -- i did not want the post to be of infinite length . . .

 

What Mr. Wicca said. Plus:

The Americas were settled over 15,000 years ago by people who made their homes here and their descendants have lived here since, creating their own distinct cultures from Alaska to the tip of South America. This was their land, their homes and their right was to live as they had chosen.

When the Europeans came, they not only killed, raped and pillaged, they destroyed entire cultures and made the peoples here into second class citizens, and slaves. The Europeans carved up the lands among themselves with no regard for the indigenous peoples, who were now only a nuisance.

For the hundreds of years since, the indigenous peoples have not been allowed to fully participate in their own cultures or in the new European culture that was forced on them. They have been relegated to outsiders in their own homes. "Displaced Persons" might be a good term to use here for people whose ancestors lived here for 15,000 years and now are forced to live on the crumbs of their captors.

The peoples you see coming across the southern U.S. border are not the descendants of the taller lighter skinned Spanish who conquered the lands that are now Mexico and the South American nations, they are the descendants of the indigenous peoples who have been forced to live in nations created by conquerors in which they have lived for centuries as pseudo-slaves. They didn't create the governments south of our borders, nor do they have any power to change their circumstances there.

These immigrants are, like American Indians and American Blacks, exactly what the Europeans made of them. Everything here in the western hemisphere , including immigration, is the result of European creations, including the islands in the Caribbean, like Cuba and Haiti. And nothing is going to change until people wake up and realize that there are still hundreds of millions of people still living and dying in squaller because of the European invasion into the Western Hemisphere.

http://www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_Mexico_Sterilization_Sweep_Against_Indigenous_03-26-2000.htm

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@ Darkblue;

Even if they 'won' it through war, they still essentially stole the land. They killed the other nation's people to do it, that's all.

@ Larry;

Exactly. They need to go back and start over. I believe we can help them, but not by just letting them stay here. It's a short-term solution that will quickly turn into another problem.

 

A link I should have included in my previous post, sorry.

http://www.libertadlatina.org/Lat_Mexico_Sterilization_Sweep_Against_Indigenous_03-26-2000.htm

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And the Apache nation stole in from the Pueblo nation who stole it from the Zuni nation and on and on back through the mists of time. Even the Mexicans wouldn't exist as they presently do if not for the Spanish conquests and interbreeding with the conquered.

If every 'nation' has stolen land at some time, who's the rightful owner?

Answer - nobody. There's no such thing as ownership of the earth. There's only tenancy, backed by whatever power a nation is capable of exerting to retain it, at the discretion of fate and the earth itself. In an instant coasts reshape, fertile lands become desert, populous regions become ocean floor, cities are swallowed, continents split.

There's no going back to anything that used to be. Not ever. Can't be done as nothing can be undone. There's only now and the choices that are made now. Whining about history is a pointless waste of life.

 

I don't see that it hurts anyone to not be a massive majority. The fact is that no one's having as many babies as they used to. The reason the US population is stable is because of the influx from south america, they keep us just at the proper replacement rate. If we opened the border, there would be more, but not THAT many more, because there's only so much more room before they're better off at home. At some point in the future, mexican americans will become just like the rest of americans, and have less babies, and at some point in the distant future the same thing will happen to central/south america, as they continue to modernize and get iPods....

Unless you're saying YOU are afraid of people of different colors.... I mean, I personally dig brown chicks

 

I don't recall saying anything about being afraid.