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[Magdalena]

OK.
I feel better, now.
We can continue...

A couple personal observations with the immigration thing.
The company I work for does work for a few landscaping companies. One of those companies employees 20 something illegals. They are paid cash, as contracted work. This info came straight from the owner of the company.

Why don't they hire people who can do the job in a legal way? Because they can't find anyone who can work as hard and for such a small amount of cash? Because when the owner pays cash he doesn't have to pay taxes either? Because he doesn't have to provide their workers with health insurance? This is what I see when they say, "The wealth will trickle down."

This is what I would like you to explain to me since you know people who do this "illegal" transactions:
Undocumented people are unwanted in this country, but undocumented people are hired every day. Why aren't the bosses hiring US-born people who are unemployed? Why aren't the bosses hiring US born people who are on welfare because they can't find a job? --"Could it be because those "illegals", I hate that term, by the way, are offered the jobs and do take them?

Just like you, I hear stories, and what I hear is that people who have the right documents to work in this country don't want to do manual labor and for such small pay.--That makes sense, but someone has to dig a hole, move the equipment, move the material, clean up, etc. Who's willing to do it? We are. 

So what is everyone complaining about? Do you want us? No. Do you need us? Yes. So what do you do? Dilemmas...dilemmas. Corruption, I guess it trickles down.

He straight up told me only 1 is legal, the rest cash their checks and send half of it back to Mexico to family.

Wait, I thought you said they were paid in cash. 

Big deal, I don't really care.

So why mention it? 
By the way, you know Trump wants to "intercept" this money? That man is so greedy! I think this will be his downfall. 

This is the one that bothers me. My family physician is also a reserve police officer for a small city not far from me. He was also on the board of the local hospital.
Back in the early 2000's they had a massive influx of Mexicans to town. In a very short period the local police force went from 5 officers/2 cars, to 10 cars/can't remember the exact number of officers. He claims it was a direct result of the higher crime rate in the Mexican area.

I think this is called, racism. Show me the crime report, maybe they were US-born people committing misdemeanors who were labeled in the police report as, "illegal Mexicans." After all, they say we all look alike. 

The hospital went under around the time of the economy taking a dump in the late 2000's. According to him, the biggest factor in the closing was the increase in unpaid care from the immigrants.

How easily we forget, don't we? Do you remember this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_the_Great_Recession

Causes of the Great Recession
Many factors directly and indirectly caused the Great Recession (which started in 2007 with the US subprime mortgage crisis), with experts and economists placing different weights on particular causes.

Major causes of the initial subprime mortgage crisis and following recession include: International trade imbalances and lax lending standards contributing to high levels of developed country household debt and real-estate bubbles that have since burst; U.S. government housing policies; and limited regulation of non-depository financial institutions. Once the recession began, various responses were attempted with different degrees of success. These included fiscal policies of governments; monetary policies of central banks; measures designed to help indebted consumers refinance their mortgage debt; and inconsistent approaches used by nations to bail out troubled banking industries and private bondholders, assuming private debt burdens or socializing losses.

Etc., etc., etc.

...Let's see...Nope, don't see anything about immigrants being the biggest factor in the closing of hospitals because of unpaid care for another human being in one of the wealthiest countries of the world.

This bothers people too? That the US-born children, who have undocumented parents, have access to medical care? Really? 

Why so much hate for someone who was born in the USA, and loves this country, just like you? And this information, about the hospital closing due to unpaid bills by undocumented people...came from your family physician, who is also a reserve police officer for a small city not far from you, and he was also on the board of the local hospital? That sounds like an intelligent man, with a lot of power. This is the funny thing about being an educated person...it's a double edge sword. One can use their knowledge to help others or one can use all their knowledge to hurt them. I believe the word, "civilized and educated" people use is, "a scapegoat." That's the word. That's what we are...to you, your scapegoat.

One more quicky. I have a friend who immigrated from Bosnia who owns a trucking company. He has owned the business fire several years but claims he hasn't paid a dime in taxes due to a loophole. I can't remember the exact details but something to do with having a grace period of a couple years to help immigrants get on their feet. All he has to do is change the name of the company when the period is up, and recycle.
Good for him, totally legal. He'd fit in nicely here, big time liberal atheist.

I have no comment.

[Steeler]

Wow Mags, where to start. First off, you ask why hate illegals(sorry, that's what they are). I never said I hated them. I do understand their hardships, as well as Syrians, Iraqis, Cubans, all of the problems in Africa, people all over the world. We can't just open the doors and bring everybody in.

With that said, I'm not one that complains about Mexicans taking "our" jobs. The reason they have those jobs is just like you said, we aren't gonna do it for the pay they will. Why in the world would I go out in the heat and dig holes when I can sit here on my lazy ass waiting for my crazy check. He he.
I'll say this, the Mexicans I've seen work twice as hard as many Americans.
When I said the owner paid cash, I meant no taxes deducted. I need to be more precise. People in these parts always call it cash got some reason.

Next, how in the world is what the inflow of illegals did to crime in this town racism? Should the police have let them steal? Are you saying doc is a racist for observing an increase in crime? As far as weather they were illegal or not, they usually don't have a document identifying them as illegal, but when they don't have anything saying they aren't, and don't speak English it's not hard to figure out.

Next, the closing of the hospital. This was one rural hospital, I'm not talking about any other ones, I don't have any info on those.
I personally don't have  a problem with a hospital treating someone with life threatening situation btw.

I'm not following you on the scapegoat thing.

So let's recap. If Steeler shares a few personal experiences with the group, all is discarded unless he provides proof of citizenship of the accused, tax documentation, and sworn statements from former hospital staff? I'm being sarcastic if ya couldn't tell.
I did have some more tidbits from the town and crime rate, but forget it. I should've known it would essentially be labeled as BS, simply because it doesn't fit the agenda.

Sorry this is a jumbled up mess, trying to do too many things at once.

[Magdalena]

I never said I hated them.

Good.

With that said, I'm not one that complains about Mexicans taking "our" jobs.

Good.

I'll say this, the Mexicans I've seen work twice as hard as many Americans.

Good.

I personally don't have  a problem with a hospital treating someone with life threatening situation btw.

Good.

You see, we agree on some things. This is good. 

One more thing.
When someone says, "Mexicans" they are using that word to refer to people from every Latin American country. It's not fair to have a Salvadoran, like myself, commit a crime and assume he/she is a Mexican, just because he/she looks like a Mexican. Mexico is the last border all of us have to cross to get here, so it looks as if everyone who comes here is from Mexico, but that's not always the case.

[Magdalena]

Wow Mags, where to start. First off, you ask why hate illegals(sorry, that's what they are).

One more thing, for you, my friend.
http://www.nohumanbeingisillegal.com/Home.html

[Steeler]

I try not to label them all"Mexicans". I may slip and be guilty of it at times. I do know that the landscaping workers I referred to are Mexican. Apparently because Guatemalans and Mexicans do not like each other so it was code one or the other. So I'm told.

I think I'll bow out of this thread, I don't see much productivity going forward.

[Davin]

Ok. You're impossible. By your logic, you could make a case that the whole world is one big conspiracy. Or that nobody is trustworthy. What if I did find the CEO of that hospital, is he lying too? Any way to prove most of what we hear everyday?

I don't know which part in particular you're having trouble understanding, so I'll break the sentence down and ask about specific parts.

"I don't perceive it as BS[...]"

I mean that I don't think you're lying, nor do I think that the hearsay that you say you're hearing are lies. Do you understand this?

"[...]I perceive it as unreliable."

I mean that it is simply not reliable information. Any other inferences about what I think about it will be wrong. Do you understand this?

Please do ask questions about the parts that are confusing you.

In the doc story, he was a police officer and BOD at the hospital, no agenda, we were just small talking. Add that to personally witnessing the increase in immigrants and the number of police cars parked at the station, it adds up to me. If that's foolish on my part, then I'm foolish.

It's not a foolish thing to do to think that the story might be true. But it's foolish when you're start to make decisions off of the story when you haven't made sure that it was true. And yes, it seems to add up to you, but you can't show it with facts, just what feels good to you. Again, I understand that basing your beliefs on reality is not as important to you as it is to me, and that would be fine in itself. That however doesn't make it OK for you to perpetuate unvetted stories as if they are true, at least not unchallenged.

As far as the business owner. If he lied to me, which I doubt, then it is what it is. If not, it's perfectly legal. Would you pay taxes if you didn't have to? Not this guy.

Yes, I would pay taxes even if I had the ability to avoid them. I like police, schools, fire departments, roads, hospitals, courts of law, public utilities... etc. And paying my small part to help keep these useful things around, is worth it. I embrace my responsibility for the things that I use, I don't act like a spoiled entitled idiot who expects everyone else to pay for his dinner, so of course, being a responsible adult, I would pay taxes.

[Davin]

I won't quote your political opinion post, too long. I'm not going to argue with that. It's mostly your opinion and that's fine. Some of it I agree with you on.

Tell me which parts you think are opinion, and I will back up what I say with facts. I'm not going to write out a 100+ page essay linked to peer reviewed studies and statistics, in response to your extremely low effort post. It's not reasonable to expect someone to put in more effort that you are willing to put in. But I'm willing to discuss it with you and back up the particular points you don't think I can back up with facts and research.

I did notice that you didn't present of his policies, please do offer which of his policies you agree with, with at least a brief explanation.

Edit: I a word or two.

[Davin]

In short, every argument I've heard against Clinton has sounded to me like "don't vote for that bad person -- vote for this worse one!"

That is every argument I've seen. Of course they don't word it like that, but that's what it boiled down to.

[Arturo]

As far as weather they were illegal or not, they usually don't have a document identifying them as illegal, but when they don't have anything saying they aren't, and don't speak English it's not hard to figure out.

I wouldn't say the other things are racism but this right here is racial profiling. First, "they don't have a document saying they are illegal, but when they don't have anything saying they aren't... it's not hard to figure out". I would hear that same argument from a theist about correlating good things happening and the inability to prove god doesn't exist, therefore god did it. You can't prove a negative.

Next, "and they don't speak English" There are plenty of people in America who don't speak English and have right to be here. Again, I can't prove a negative so to say if they were illegal immigrants or not is not possible.

But I digress, at least you used the evidence at hand to come to a hypothesis.

[Magdalena]

I try not to label them all"Mexicans". I may slip and be guilty of it at times. I do know that the landscaping workers I referred to are Mexican.

Thank you. This is why I like talking with you, we come from extreme sides but when we talk, we listen to each other and we acknowledge the things we hear other people say about our people. This is important so that we can solve these problems...well, if we can't solve them, at least we can share this information with those who are stubborn and refuse to see the other side. 

Apparently because Guatemalans and Mexicans do not like each other so it was code one or the other. So I'm told.

Yes. I'm ashamed to say it, but I also hear this a lot. It's not just Guatemalans who say bad things about Mexicans, Salvadorans do it, Ecuadorians do it, Argentinians do it, etc., etc. They each have their reasons, but the one I hear the most is that they are mistreated as they are crossing Mexico to get here.  I don't know how true this is. I was brought here as a child, so I didn't experience "crossing the border."

You know a lot of stereotypical comments and that's because you're around our people, a lot--I think this is good. I'm sure they would like to tell you that some of those comments are wrong, but there is that small problem of language that gets in the way.  I also hear Latinos say that the North American bosses are sometimes a lot nicer than our own Latino bosses. Again, because of the language, they can't tell you how thankful they are for that and for the fact that you gave them a job when they needed one.

[Steeler]

Davin, since I did ask, I'll respond to your post. I'm gonna fuck it all up since I haven't mastered proper quoting. I'll just bold my responses in your quote.

[Steeler]

I'm still trying to figure out why everyone here is all torn up about Trumps past insensitivities, or down right racism if you like. But no problem with Hillary's illegal activities.
I guess that's just small stuff. Nothing to see there huh?

Or how about the real issues, like policy? Is it all hate, policy be damned?




Denial incoming..........

Sure let's talk about the policies, what are Trump's actual policies? Because as much as I have seen, there isn't much there at all.

Trump thinks that global warming is a hoax, and will open up more coal and green house emitting industries, while taking away clean air regulations. Now in a time where we're already pretty fucked in 50 years time no matter what we do, we could limit the damage done by fixing things now. But instead of that, Trump wants to make things even worse and make it happen sooner. That's stupid policy.

I think that a lot of people believe global warming is very debatable. Is it short term? Is it a natural event? Have we even been monitoring global climate long enough to know? Beats me, but sounds logical to me that we could be causing climate change. Fact? Both sides would probably claim it as fact, depending on your source.

Building a wall. Stupid and expensive. Like Mexicans don't have shovel, ladder, and rope technology. A very stupid policy.
You say it's stupid. That's opinion. Expensive, you betcha.
Beatable, yup. Stupid again, opinion. Will it ever happen? I highly doubt it, but it's big. MERCA lol

Trump wants to deport all undocumented workers. A very expensive process, that will cost way more than undocumented immigrants are currently costing tax payers. I understand that people want to force people to follow the law, but let's be fiscally responsible about it instead of wasting so much money on something that isn't that big of a problem.
How do you know for a fact how much it will cost to deport everybody? Something that isn't that big of a problem. To who? You? Opinion.
And I'm not disagreeing with you on it.

Banning muslims... This is where his racism plays a part in his policies. Banning all the people of a religion is not good, it's discrimination and religious persecution based on what? We didn't do shit to the Christian religion no matter how many Christian terrorists there were. And I don't think we should have. Just like we shouldn't now.
Banning them all permanently I agree, bad policy. I thought he said it would be temporary until they fixed the background checks.


Defeating ISIS... I suppose we'll just have to trust that he has something here and it doesn't end up bullshit like every other time he said, "I have something here, folks. Trust me." Then he comes out and offers to pay someone to bring evidence that Obama's birth certificate was faked.
Agree, we will have to wait that one out.

Nuclear weapons, Trump thinks that if we have them, then we should use them. Well, I hope you have a good jacket because a nuclear winter will last a while.
I think he's full of hot air, and made a lot of comments never believing he would really be elected.

Minimum wage... well this takes math and statistics, and based on my prior dealings with you, it's probably better for you to just let this one go.
What's that supposed to mean?

Taxes. Trump is going to lower taxes for the wealthy, and raise it for you and the middle income families. An economy thrives with money flows, but when the wealthy get more money, then tend to save it instead of spend it and when they do spend it, it mostly gets spent in a smaller pool. This means that the more money that wealthy people have, the more stale it becomes. Now I understand that the wealthy don't want to pay taxes, and I too would be against the 90% that it was almost a century ago, but what is good for the economy is to let more people spend more money, than to let a few people horde most of the money. So when a country takes more money from the middle class, they spend less money, and the economy gets worse. This is the policy that Trump wants to enact, and it's stupid.
He is going to lower taxes for the rich and raise them for everybody else? Did he say that?
Hrs going to raise taxes for myself and the middle class? I don't recall revealing my income to you, but it looks like you've lumped me with the poor.

Guns. I know this is a subject that many people lose their ability think rationally about it. Gun laws are too lax right now. If you make it harder for criminals to get guns, it makes guns more expensive on the black market, that limits the amount of guns that a criminals can afford. But if you continue to let criminals buy guns at normal prices from legal sources, then more criminals will have more guns. I know we will never bring that down to zero, but I'd prefer moving the number down instead of what Trump wants to do and make it even easier for criminals to get low cost access to guns which will make the number go up.
Gun laws are too lax right now. Opinion.
A criminal buying a gun from a legal source? That's a crime.


National debt. He wants to get rid of the national debt in eight years. I commend him for wanting it, but with the other things he's proposing, I don't see how reducing the amount of money the government makes and increasing the amount of government spending is going to that. I mean, I know that's math, but I think it's simple enough to understand.
Agree

Abortion and women's rights in general. Tough subject, I'll talk about it if you want.
Agree it's tough. But I have a feeling we would agree.

Torture and other breaking of international laws. Trump wants to break the laws. That crooked criminal.
Then him and Hillary have something in common.


A bunch more, but since you never brought a list, I'll just let that sit there. I'll talk about other ones if you want.

I didn't expect you to write an article, and I didn't intend to start a debate. I just like hearing others thoughts, that doesn't mean I need to destroy them. Everyone has opinions.

[Steeler]

Told ya I'd Fuck that up. Meant to bold my comments, that's Elkhart I get for rushing. I'll try to fix it in a bit if I get a break

[Magdalena]

Told ya I'd Fuck that up. Meant to bold my comments, that's Elkhart I get for rushing. I'll try to fix it in a bit if I get a break

I think a moderator can help you fix them so that you don't have to. This has happened to me before.

[Davin]

I'm still trying to figure out why everyone here is all torn up about Trumps past insensitivities, or down right racism if you like. But no problem with Hillary's illegal activities.
I guess that's just small stuff. Nothing to see there huh?

Or how about the real issues, like policy? Is it all hate, policy be damned?




Denial incoming..........

Sure let's talk about the policies, what are Trump's actual policies? Because as much as I have seen, there isn't much there at all.

Trump thinks that global warming is a hoax, and will open up more coal and green house emitting industries, while taking away clean air regulations. Now in a time where we're already pretty fucked in 50 years time no matter what we do, we could limit the damage done by fixing things now. But instead of that, Trump wants to make things even worse and make it happen sooner. That's stupid policy.

I think that a lot of people believe global warming is very debatable. Is it short term? Is it a natural event? Have we even been monitoring global climate long enough to know? Beats me, but sounds logical to me that we could be causing climate change. Fact? Both sides would probably claim it as fact, depending on your source.

It's not debatable. It's as much as a fact as evolution and gravity. Both sides might claim their claims are facts, but only science is able to back it up with mountains of reliable evidence. We haven't been tracking global temperature for that long, but we have many different methods to determine the history of temperature from different fields of science that confirm and validate each other. It's not a debate any more, and denying global warming as an adult is just as bad as if they went around believing in Santa Claus.

Building a wall. Stupid and expensive. Like Mexicans don't have shovel, ladder, and rope technology. A very stupid policy.

You say it's stupid. That's opinion. Expensive, you betcha.
Beatable, yup. Stupid again, opinion. Will it ever happen? I highly doubt it, but it's big. MERCA lol

I don't see how anyone wouldn't think it's a stupid idea. Opinion, sure, as much as it is a conclusion from the facts.

Trump wants to deport all undocumented workers. A very expensive process, that will cost way more than undocumented immigrants are currently costing tax payers. I understand that people want to force people to follow the law, but let's be fiscally responsible about it instead of wasting so much money on something that isn't that big of a problem.

How do you know for a fact how much it will cost to deport everybody?

11 million undocumented people. How many people do you think will need to be hired to track them down? How many people do you think you will need to hire to go an collect them? To transport them? I don't know exactly how much it will, no one does, but the estimates are not good. $400-600 billion dollars? While they cost the federal government net value about $10 billion So in 40 to 60years, we might break even on the estimated costs of deporting them.

Something that isn't that big of a problem. To who? You? Opinion.

Read the study above. Not opinion. Otherwise, you show me with fact that it's a big problem.

And I'm not disagreeing with you on it.

Well, you could at least look at the available information.

Banning muslims... This is where his racism plays a part in his policies. Banning all the people of a religion is not good, it's discrimination and religious persecution based on what? We didn't do shit to the Christian religion no matter how many Christian terrorists there were. And I don't think we should have. Just like we shouldn't now.

Banning them all permanently I agree, bad policy. I thought he said it would be temporary until they fixed the background checks.

Fix them to what accuracy? What is the accuracy that they are at now, what level of accuracy would you find acceptable?

Defeating ISIS... I suppose we'll just have to trust that he has something here and it doesn't end up bullshit like every other time he said, "I have something here, folks. Trust me." Then he comes out and offers to pay someone to bring evidence that Obama's birth certificate was faked.

Agree, we will have to wait that one out.

I think that the generals will take care of it, I trust them more with military theory than presidents.

Nuclear weapons, Trump thinks that if we have them, then we should use them. Well, I hope you have a good jacket because a nuclear winter will last a while.

I think he's full of hot air, and made a lot of comments never believing he would really be elected.

You think he's full of hot air? Which parts? Is it one of those bible things where the parts you disagree with are "hot air" and the parts you agree with are not?

Minimum wage... well this takes math and statistics, and based on my prior dealings with you, it's probably better for you to just let this one go.

What's that supposed to mean?

When I tried to explain how you misrepresented the statistics about unarmed black people getting shot by police, you didn't take to it and kept on being wrong about it. If you're not going to be serious about this, then I'm not going to do all the work required. To discuss one of the more technical and complicated topics.

Taxes. Trump is going to lower taxes for the wealthy, and raise it for you and the middle income families. An economy thrives with money flows, but when the wealthy get more money, then tend to save it instead of spend it and when they do spend it, it mostly gets spent in a smaller pool. This means that the more money that wealthy people have, the more stale it becomes. Now I understand that the wealthy don't want to pay taxes, and I too would be against the 90% that it was almost a century ago, but what is good for the economy is to let more people spend more money, than to let a few people horde most of the money. So when a country takes more money from the middle class, they spend less money, and the economy gets worse. This is the policy that Trump wants to enact, and it's stupid.

He is going to lower taxes for the rich and raise them for everybody else? Did he say that?

Not in those words of course. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/publications/analysis-donald-trumps-tax-plan/full

Hrs going to raise taxes for myself and the middle class? I don't recall revealing my income to you, but it looks like you've lumped me with the poor.

It's been the trend of Republican tax policy changes over the last 30 years, and doesn't look like Trump is varying from that... tradition.

Guns. I know this is a subject that many people lose their ability think rationally about it. Gun laws are too lax right now. If you make it harder for criminals to get guns, it makes guns more expensive on the black market, that limits the amount of guns that a criminals can afford. But if you continue to let criminals buy guns at normal prices from legal sources, then more criminals will have more guns. I know we will never bring that down to zero, but I'd prefer moving the number down instead of what Trump wants to do and make it even easier for criminals to get low cost access to guns which will make the number go up.

Gun laws are too lax right now. Opinion.

No, it's not an opinion. They are. Here in Arizona, a criminal can buy a gun without a background check for the normal price, no questions asked. Is that not too lax? Is that an opinion? Maybe you they're not too lax until people are handing criminals guns for free.

A criminal buying a gun from a legal source? That's a crime.

Yes, it is illegal. Too bad Trump and other gun rights people don't want to prevent it. They'd rather just trust criminals won't go and buy a gun because it's illegal and we all know that criminals don't do things that are illegal.

National debt. He wants to get rid of the national debt in eight years. I commend him for wanting it, but with the other things he's proposing, I don't see how reducing the amount of money the government makes and increasing the amount of government spending is going to that. I mean, I know that's math, but I think it's simple enough to understand.

Agree

Abortion and women's rights in general. Tough subject, I'll talk about it if you want.

Agree it's tough. But I have a feeling we would agree.

Torture and other breaking of international laws. Trump wants to break the laws. That crooked criminal.

Then him and Hillary have something in common.

Except that Hillary had been exonerated time and time again, making her, technically, legally, and according to our constitution, not a criminal. Unless you want to go against the constitution and start the whole "guilty until proven innocent" stuff that the founding fathers were against? Plus, Hillary never boasted that she would break laws as a matter of her political policies. So not much in common with Hillary.

A bunch more, but since you never brought a list, I'll just let that sit there. I'll talk about other ones if you want.

I didn't expect you to write an article, and I didn't intend to start a debate. I just like hearing others thoughts, that doesn't mean I need to destroy them. Everyone has opinions.

Not a problem, you wanted to talk about the policies, so I did.