POLITICS!! Elections are here... who will/won't you VOTE for.

[mrjarrell]

Here is Rebecca's stance on immigration. It's a far cry from USMC's accusations.

Immigration & Homeland Security | Rebecca Sink-Burris - U.S. Senate (IN)

 

[dom1104]

Why does the mere thought of voting, make my stomach fill with bile.

I have never been LESS enthused about going to the polls in my life.

I wish I could vote for someone, whos campaign was "I will do absolutly nothing, and just eat cheetos."

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

Well you and I will have to respectfully disagree on these points. Largely because you have inaccurately described the Libertarian stance.

I see nothing that the war on drugs has brought to this nation that is positive. While I oppose the use of drugs and think they are generally counter-productive, the fact that we have brought a war to our inner cities and small towns to "fight" this has only erupted in the form of a violent subculture class.

As for the open borders (your inaccurate term for the Libertarian policy) we have a huge immigration problem now. One that is not even being addressed. We clearly need immigrants to do work that most Americans are unwilling to do. We have no way to bring them in legally. They stream across our border illegally and they get hired because they do, for less money, what a high school kid won't do on his summer break.

But you describe the term as open border and that is not accurate either. It is a more logical and open immigration, not a wide open and/or unsecured border. We can have a policy of open immigration that is also one that has secured borders. The rules have to change.

Reasonable disagreement. I'll address the drug issue first.

I don't like prohibition. I don't think it works. I don't think it's right that alcohol maintains a protected status even though it can kill. I don't think it's right that tobacco maintains a protected status even though we know it kills. And standing on the outside looking in we have pot smokers, who the worse thing they do is go down to the grocery store and buy some cheese and crackers after getting their high on.

I would have no problem with doing away with the prohibition on pot. There are drugs that I think are flat out dangerous and whose use promotes an unsafe environment. Meth, crack, LSD, heroin fall into this category. I would never support the legalization of these drugs as a matter of public policy.

The Libertarian platform states:

Drug prohibition does more to make Americans unsafe than any other factor. Just as alcohol prohibition gave us Al Capone and the mafia, drug prohibition has given us the Crips, the Bloods and drive-by shootings. Consider the historical evidence: America's murder rate rose nearly 70% during alcohol prohibition, but returned to its previous levels after prohibition ended. Now, since the War on Drugs began, America's murder rates have doubled. The cause/effect relationship is clear. Prohibition is putting innocent lives at risk.

What's more, drug prohibition also inflates the cost of drugs, leading users to steal to support their high priced habits. It is estimated that drug addicts commit 25% of all auto thefts, 40% of robberies and assaults, and 50% of burglaries and larcenies. Prohibition puts your property at risk. Finally, nearly one half of all police resources are devoted to stopping drug trafficking, instead of preventing violent crime. The bottom line? By ending drug prohibition Libertarians would double the resources available for crime prevention, and significantly reduce the number of violent criminals at work in your neighborhood.

BS. Not only does their platform misrepresent facts, attempts to restate theroms as truths, it also inartfully creates an alternate history that never existed in our dimensional plane.

Gangs have been around since the dawn of man. In the US, The Five Points Gang of New York, of which Al Capone was a member, predates Prohibition some 60 years. Before prohibition, gangs ran extortion, gambling, and prostitution rings. There was still theft, mayhem, and murder. Yes, gangs stepped in and filled the vaccum created through Prohibition. But does anyone think for a single second that crime will evaporate when drugs are legalized? There is no emperical or theoretical proof of that, and in fact all history points that something else will take drugs place as the ganster product of choice.

Now let's talk murder rates. The following information was sourced from the "Murder Statistics from Statistical Abstract of the United States", U.S. Dept. of Commerce

The ten years Prohibition Prohibition
preceeding begins 1920 ends 1933
Prohibition
1910 - 4.6 1920 - 6.8 1933 - 9.7
1911 - 5.5 1921 - 8.1 1934 - 9.5
1912 - 5.4 1922 - 8.0 1935 - 8.3
1913 - 6.1 1923 - 7.8 1936 - 8.0
1914 - 6.2 1924 - 8.1 1937 - 7.6
1915 - 5.9 1925 - 8.3 1938 - 6.8
1916 - 6.3 1926 - 8.4 1939 - 6.4
1917 - 6.9 1927 - 8.4 1940 - 6.3
1918 - 6.5 1928 - 8.6 1941 - 6.0
1919 - 7.2 1929 - 8.4 1942 - 5.9
1930 - 8.8 1943 - 5.1
1931 - 9.2 1944 - 5.0
1932 - 9.0

Criminals, not drug prohibition, does more to make America unsafe. They've been around for thousands of years. They will be around for thousands of years. Come on, read your history books. The James Gang, Billy the Kid, Cole Younger, Dillinger, Nelson, Floyd, in our own history. What was being prohibited when they were robbing banks and rustling cattle? Stealing was prohibitted.

Ok, so during the 13 years that alcohol was illegal, murder went up. So sober people kill more, right? Wrong. And it's just silly to assert so. Prohibition was not causal to the murder rate going up. It wasn't even corollary. The murder rate during the first year of Prohibition was lower than two of the previous three years prior to Prohibition. The murder rate in the final year of Prohibition was lower than the first two years after Prohibition was repealed. What was that, pent up demand?

The population grew from 90 million to 140 million during that time, and most of the influx of immigrants moved into cities. I don't suppose that overcrowding had anything at all to do with the murder rates.

Oh, and we had this thing called the Great Depression during a few of those years. Being poor and destitute and having no money for food won't ever drive you to crime.

There are two significant events that can explain the murder rate fluxuation better duing this 34 year time period. World War I and World War II. Interesting how the murder rates go up when we weren't in Europe killing somebody else and drop when we were at war. But I'm not trying to prove what effected murder rates during the period 1910 - 1944. Just that there we other factors. I digress.

There is no causal relationship between murder and drugs. There is simply spin to support an agenda. The cause and effect is not clear, and I hate when someone yells "settled science" at me. Alcohol prohibition did not create gangs or crime, and didn't make them any more ruthless. It fact, Capone ran the largest soup kitchen in Chicago. So to that argument I give a great big whatever.

Now on to paragraph two. Of course if you make a product more costly to produce and distribute the price goes up. Simple economics.

Do you have a habit or hobby? I like fast European cars. I want another Ferrari. I can't buy one right now because I lack the funds to do so. Diving into a life of crime to support my high priced habit does not even enter my mind. People steal because they are thieves.

I tried to find the source of the statistics from the LP platform that "drug addicts commit 25% of all auto thefts, 40% of robberies and assaults, and 50% of burglaries and larcenies". Just throwing numbers out without substantiating them or making them available for scrutiny is a simpleton way of trying to make a point without any willingness to put any effort into proving it. "Settled Science". There is no evidence to support the statement "Prohibition puts your property at risk."

Again, I can find no evidence supporting the claim that "nearly one half of all police resources are devoted to stopping drug trafficking, instead of preventing violent crime".

The most interesting statement I read was "By ending drug prohibition Libertarians would double the resources available for crime prevention, and significantly reduce the number of violent criminals at work in your neighborhood." What do you mean? You mean you want to keep my tax money that was saved by eliminating the war on drugs and spend it for other purposes? According to the numbers, nearly 50% of police resources are spent on drug efforts. Let's round up to 50% for the sake of argument and to make the math easy. If we spend $100 on police, we just saved $50 which can be returned to the taxpayer. Also, since 25% of auto thefts, 40% of robberies and assaults, and 50% or burglaries and larcenies will no longer be committed, that's at least another 80% of what police spend their time doing. So ending the war on drugs should cut required police resources by 90%.

You have to be an idiot devoid of any education or critical thinking skills to believe this. It's political rhetoric, and badly crafted at that.

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

Well you and I will have to respectfully disagree on these points. Largely because you have inaccurately described the Libertarian stance.

I see nothing that the war on drugs has brought to this nation that is positive. While I oppose the use of drugs and think they are generally counter-productive, the fact that we have brought a war to our inner cities and small towns to "fight" this has only erupted in the form of a violent subculture class.

As for the open borders (your inaccurate term for the Libertarian policy) we have a huge immigration problem now. One that is not even being addressed. We clearly need immigrants to do work that most Americans are unwilling to do. We have no way to bring them in legally. They stream across our border illegally and they get hired because they do, for less money, what a high school kid won't do on his summer break.

But you describe the term as open border and that is not accurate either. It is a more logical and open immigration, not a wide open and/or unsecured border. We can have a policy of open immigration that is also one that has secured borders. The rules have to change.

Again, I quote from the Libertarian Party platform vis-a-vis immigration policy which I've included below. The entire platform can be found here Immigration | Libertarian Party.

Among its many virtues, America is a nation where laws are generally reasonable, respected and impartially enforced. A glaring exception is immigration.

Today an estimated 12 million people live in the U.S. without authorization, 1.6 million in Texas alone, and that number grows every year. Many Americans understandably want the rule of law restored to a system where law-breaking has become the norm.

Yep. That's what we want.

The fundamental choice before us is whether we redouble our efforts to enforce existing immigration law, whatever the cost, or whether we change the law to match the reality of a dynamic society and labor market.

Um, what? Who said anything about changing the law? Didn't we just say we want the rule of law restored?

Low-skilled immigrants cross the Mexican border illegally or overstay their visas for a simple reason: There are jobs waiting here for them to fill, especially in Texas and other, faster growing states. Each year our economy creates hundreds of thousands of net new jobs — in such sectors as retail, cleaning, food preparation, construction and tourism — that require only short-term, on-the-job training.

Um, no. Low-skilled immigrants come to America for a myriad of reasons. I thought simplifying complex issues into a sound bite was a D/R thing.

At the same time, the supply of Americans who have traditionally filled many of those jobs — those without a high school diploma — continues to shrink. Their numbers have declined by 4.6 million in the past decade, as the typical American worker becomes older and better educated.

So it's America's fault that illegals are coming into the country? I thought Democrats were the Blame America First crowd.

Yet our system offers no legal channel for anywhere near a sufficient number of peaceful, hardworking immigrants to legally enter the United States even temporarily to fill this growing gap. The predictable result is illegal immigration.

Out and out lie. H1B program, migrant worker program. There areporgrams that allow immigrants to come here to work. Again, Libertarians blame the victim for the crime. I see no difference between this and Obama saying that America's greatness came at the expense of the rest of the world.

In response, we can spend billions more to beef up border patrols. We can erect hundreds of miles of ugly fence slicing through private property along the Rio Grande. We can raid more discount stores and chicken-processing plants from coast to coast. We can require all Americans to carry a national ID card and seek approval from a government computer before starting a new job.

Yeah, that's what people want.

Or we can change our immigration law to more closely conform to how millions of normal people actually live.

Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner. We should just give up and give in and open our borders.

Crossing an international border to support your family and pursue dreams of a better life is not an inherently criminal act like rape or robbery. If it were, then most of us descend from criminals. As the people of Texas know well, the large majority of illegal immigrants are not bad people. They are people who value family, faith and hard work trying to live within a bad system.

Do we have laws or not? Are some laws more equal than others? Sure, the punishment for some laws is greater than for others. But that doesn't mean if you break one law you're a criminal but if you break another you're not. I thought Dumborats were the only people to not understand the concept of illegal. Now I guess there's a new group.

When large numbers of otherwise decent people routinely violate a law, the law itself is probably the problem. To argue that illegal immigration is bad merely because it is illegal avoids the threshold question of whether we should prohibit this kind of immigration in the first place.

This is the scariest statement of all and makes me unable to support the Libertarian Party. The belief that if a lot of people break a law we should just jettison the law. No no no just hell no hell no no no.

We've faced this choice on immigration before. In the early 1950s, federal agents were making a million arrests a year along the Mexican border. In response, Congress ramped up enforcement, but it also dramatically increased the number of visas available through the Bracero guest worker program. As a result, apprehensions at the border dropped 95 percent. By changing the law, we transformed an illegal inflow of workers into a legal flow.

I'm too exhausted punching holes in the rest of this crap to research this.

For those workers already in the United States illegally, we can avoid "amnesty" and still offer a pathway out of the underground economy. Newly legalized workers can be assessed fines and back taxes and serve probation befitting the misdemeanor they've committed. They can be required to take their place at the back of the line should they eventually apply for permanent residency.

BS. So instead of business extorting illegals, now they want the government in on the game too. It's still amnesty. You're just making them pay for the privilege to invoke it. Let's keep exploiting those illegals we don't want.

And what's up with this stupid end of the line thing? NEWSFLASH: THEY'RE ALREADY HERE! How do you go back to the end of the line once you've already entered the building unless you first exit the building?

The fatal flaw of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act was not that it offered legal status to workers already here but that it made no provision for future workers to enter legally.

No, the fatal flaw was that it extended a precedence and let illegals know what we would do if they persevered long enough.

Immigration is not the only area of American life where a misguided law has collided with reality. In the 1920s and '30s, Prohibition turned millions of otherwise law-abiding Americans into lawbreakers and spawned an underworld of moon-shining, boot-legging and related criminal activity. (Sound familiar?) We eventually made the right choice to tax and regulate alcohol rather than prohibit it.

Drugs made me do it.

In the 19th century, America's frontier was settled largely by illegal squatters. In his influential book on property rights, The Mystery of Capital, economist Hernando de Soto describes how these so-called extralegals began to farm, mine and otherwise improve land to which they did not have strict legal title. After failed attempts by the authorities to destroy their cabins and evict them, federal and state officials finally recognized reality, changed the laws, declared amnesty and issued legal documents conferring title to the land the settlers had improved.

More revisionist history. This is so devoid of truth I don't even know where to begin. In the 19th century there were few laws regarding immigration. We were still fighting the friggin Indians. Squatters were dealt with by land owners and local government. The states and federal government came in to take people's property, saying it was unfair for a land owner to claim 200,000 acres of land. So government passed laws taking away people's property and giving it to another. Sound familiar? Is this what you want? For the government to take your house because it's too big for you and your family and give it to an illegal family that can use all the space?

As Mr. de Soto wisely concluded: "The law must be compatible with how people actually arrange their lives." That must be a guiding principle when Congress returns to the important task of fixing our immigration laws.

Yes. Let's start passing laws that no one wants to break anyway. That will fix our crime statistics. That's a great idea.

Why is there no discussion of the enormous cost associated with absorbing illegal immigrants? The cost of infrastructure, helath care, education, jails, etc?

Sounds like open borders to me.

 

[Expat]

Good run down there SemperFi. I believe some of our in house libertarian cabal have acknowledged previously that they, as a group, support open borders.

 

[88GT]

None of em are worth a darn dime.....I think I'll vote for Ted Nugent as a write in candidate....and the grandma that chased the two thugs down that raped her grandaughter, and then blew their gonads clean off!.............nice shootin Granny!

Please tell me there's video. At any rate, I'll settle for a link to the story.

I will not vote for any incumbent! Those who are in office right now have done such a **** poor job, that they have done nothing to keep their job.....THEY WORK FOR US! If you don't do want you are told at work, do you get to keep your job? NOPE! So why should it be any different for ppl in political ofc?

No more party affiliation here-----If you don't do your job, (ie, things you promise in your campaign) then they need to go pound sand!

Crikey, this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Talk about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One's status as an incumbent has zero to do with his liability/responsibility/association with the votes that got us into this mess. If that's your logic, then the mere fact of installing a new Congress is only going to create more of the same stupidity. And if that's the case, just fold up shop now. Why bother trying to keep the house clean if every two years we have to do it again?

There are a few reps I'd like to see stick around. And I'll not send them packing because I can't see past the end of my nose enough to recognize that being an elected representative isn't the problem.

Now, I agree with leaving the party loyalty at the local dump. And if your anti-incumbent attitude is rooted in support for term limits, I can support that too (grudgingly). But why would you throw out a known entity who actually does some good just because he's already in?

Well you and I will have to respectfully disagree on these points. Largely because you have inaccurately described the Libertarian stance.

I see nothing that the war on drugs has brought to this nation that is positive. While I oppose the use of drugs and think they are generally counter-productive, the fact that we have brought a war to our inner cities and small towns to "fight" this has only erupted in the form of a violent subculture class.

As for the open borders (your inaccurate term for the Libertarian policy) we have a huge immigration problem now. One that is not even being addressed. We clearly need immigrants to do work that most Americans are unwilling to do. We have no way to bring them in legally. They stream across our border illegally and they get hired because they do, for less money, what a high school kid won't do on his summer break.

But you describe the term as open border and that is not accurate either. It is a more logical and open immigration, not a wide open and/or unsecured border. We can have a policy of open immigration that is also one that has
secured borders. The rules have to change.

Why is this tired and lame excuse pulled out time and again? It's such a crock.

The reality is this. In the U.S. it's illegal to pay U.S. employees below a certain price point for their labor. The American people know this. It's not about being unwilling to work at certain jobs. It's about being unwilling to take less that the law says the employer has to pay.

Couple that with the facts that the ag jobs filled by immigrants can't turn a profit by paying the minimum wage and that there is ZERO competition for those jobs, it only makes sense that they are being filled by illegal immigrants. After all, what's so bad about paying below minimum wage when you're paying off the books too?

The only policy change the illegal immigrant/jobs issue highlights is the need to abolish the minimum wage. The rest of it is far too dynamic to pigeon-hole it to the degree that you can blame Americans for being lazy and selfish.

Jobs Americans Won’t Do? A Detailed Look at Immigrant Employment by Occupation | Center for Immigration Studies

 

[SemperFiUSMC]

Here is Rebecca's stance on immigration. It's a far cry from USMC's accusations.

Immigration & Homeland Security | Rebecca Sink-Burris - U.S. Senate (IN)

OK, so I went to the link. I've copied her platform statement on immigration below. Let's see if it's like the Libertarian Party platform or if she's a maverick.

While many detractors claim libertarians are for no borders at all, nothing could be further from the truth. As the current economic crisis tightens, though, people naturally look for someone to blame. The current immigration problem is one of the federal government’s own making; it is the politicians from both Republican and Democrat parties that have deceptively and hypocritically betrayed the middle class. For decades, they have implemented policies that are destructive to American families, the American economy, and the foreigners who have something to contribute to the American experience.

Alright. I can get on board with this. Libertarians aren't for no borders. Did anyone ever say they were for no borders? I've never said it, or thought it. So I guess that's a truth.

I reject the premise that laws against illegal immigration is the problem. Why do Libertarians hate all laws?

Now we have come to a boiling point where communities and the nation are divided, and state and local budgets are strained to breaking. We can do better as humans and as Americans.

While immigration appears hopelessly complex, there are a few simple policies that can change the course of race relations, foreign policy, and America’s economic troubles.


Good. I'm all for changing race relations foreign policy, and America's economic problems. I'm not sure how these were all caused by illigal aliens, but I'm still reading and have an open mind.

• First, we must end the collectivist incentives to come to the United States. There are legitimate incentives to be American such as the freedoms detailed in our Bill of Rights, and the rule of law which makes government officials less overtly corrupt than many other nations. The incentives of taxpayer-funded assistance for food, housing, transportation, education, and healthcare must be entirely unavailable to undocumented residents and temporary workers. Also, federal monies should be withheld from states and municipalities who do not enforce a basic rule of law, but employ intentional political tactics such as sanctuary cities.

Good. We're hard on those illegals, Take away all their goodies.



Didn't she in the previous paragraph say how corrupt the federal government and Repupublicans and Democrats are? But now people want to come to America because our officials are less overtly corrupt? I'm not sure these two statements square up. Also, what's up with withholding federal monies from states and localities who do no enforce a basic rule of law? How about the right answer is for the federal government to stop taking our money and giving it back to us as if they did us a favor. Why do we have to keep Uncle Barry happy for him to send my money back to someone else in my State? Seriously this is supposed to make me feel good?

• Second, we must encourage potential immigrants to follow the law by streamlining the process – by making the rules clear, by increasing the available number of temporary worker visas, by making immigration documents more affordable, by making waiting periods shorter, and by removing the incoherent and unfair social engineering of immigration policy. This is especially important as we find a maturing cohort of undocumented but integrated children of immigrants who are preparing for higher education, careers, and honest contributions to society with no culpability for the actions of their parents. And while it’s arguably sensible to cap the number of immigrants entering the country each year, placing disparate quotas on various countries creates another perverse incentive for foreigners to break the law.

What exactly is a potential immigrant? An illegal alien in training. So here it is. The "we need to change the law so they won't break it" mantra. The last sentences says it. While it's arguably sensible we need to eliminate immigration quotas because we are making people break the law.

• We must enforce the rules we have. We are a nation of principle and the rule of law, not of the whims of any king, judge or a political class who may like or dislike the laws. We must track legal visa holders and have the courage to deport any who act unlawfully – whether criminal or administrative offenses, including overstaying the visa. We must protect our borders and coastlines – just like other infrastructure – with simple, efficient checks for public health risks, outstanding warrants or convictions, and real terrorists. Furthermore, employers should be held accountable for making good faith efforts at hiring only documented legal workers.

We're back to enforce the law. A minute ago we were going to change them because no one followed them. I'm so confused.

• We must end birthright citizenship, discourage green card marriages, and use common sense when re-uniting families. These issues commonly create perverse incentives that make lawlessness more desired than following the law. For example, if foreigners know their children born here will be citizens, we can expect they will come with or without a visa.

I'm afraid that pesky 14th Amendment is going to get in the way, but I'm willing to give it a shot. I like that. Forbidden fruit, unclean hands, all that. She's talking my language here.

• We must be tougher in diplomatic relations with other countries. Policies of neighboring nations have a direct effect on immigration here in America. We can engage these administrations through a system of trade agreements, tariffs, and other incentives to encourage policies that positively affect our citizens.

Hmm. I'm a free marketeer. I'm not sure I want trade affected one way or another because another country won't put up a fence we're unwilling to put up ourselves.

• Like prohibition, we must end the War on Drugs, which is an epic failure. Substances that are regulated and taxed – not prohibited – are never the source of gang warfare, drug cartels, human trafficking, border disputes, and overflowing prisons. We must reform our criminal justice system in Indiana and our federal drug code. With illegal drugs out of the equation, the criminal element becomes an anomoly, not the norm, within immigration and border issues.

Yes, all Libertarian stances are predicated on the legalization of drugs.

• Lastly, a word about so-called “comprehensive immigration reform.” The proposal under this name is really an amnesty bill. That means, we are telling more than 10 million foreigners now in our communities that it is okay to break America’s laws. This is not healthy for our communities or our nation as a whole. For those who have come without documents and want to be in our country, we need to provide a new and clear path to permanent residency while respecting the American taxpayer and the rule of law. I will stand against the Real (national) ID as yet another unnecessary step toward an unaccountable police state.

She says in one sentence that amnesty is not health for our communities or nation, and the ink's not even dry and she says you need to provide everyone who came into our country without documents a new and clear path to permanent residency. More double speak.

So what DO you call it when someone has entered your country illegally and you provide them a new and clear path to permanent residency? I call it amnesty.

Immigration always has been critical to America – for population, for economy, for governance, for innovation, and for diversity. Every day that we don’t act in this current crisis will only make it more difficult to act in a clear, coherent, and fair manner.

What does this mean? Don't delay, act today? I get it, I think. I'm still not sure what we must do to act. As I read this I still see open borders through eliminating laws because we can't enforce the ones we have, and an amenesty program. Oh, and we need to legalize drugs.

OK, so she doesn't come right out and propose open borders, but if you read between the lines I still believe she does. She is definately for amnesty, as long as that's not what you call it.

Oh, and I saw nothing addressing changing race relations foreign policy, and America's economic problems, other than mentioning a plan that would address them and then didn't.

And she needs someone that can write. This is a poorly written policy statement. Lots of contradictions and doesn't say anything. On second thought, perfect political statement.

What exectly is the difference between her position and that of anyone else running? I see none. Why won't a candidate just come out and say what they mean. Like the following three point plan.

1. If you want to come here ask us. We may let you if you provide value.
2. Illegal aliens are criminals. We don't like criminals.
3. If we find you we will send you home. We are looking for you right now.