Personally, I prefer to fantasize that they were both out agitating for the human rights of unauthorized immigrants to the U.S. yesterday. :-)

Why the fuck would I care about illegal immigrants in the US?

out agitating for the human rights of unauthorized immigrants to the U.S.

Very amusing. What "human rights" are those? Next you'll be ranting about globalization . . .

Eh, I've been working (and experimenting with operating systems on the side).

BTW I've finally started reading Infidel

Man, some of you need a sense of humor. Or something.

Why the fuck would I care about illegal immigrants in the US?

Seconded. Can't be a bleeding heart liberal if one doesn't have a heart to begin with :)

And I was worrying about Aqoul being invaded by lefties...

Eh, just a recap of last year's madhouse. For what it's worth, I wasn't out at the demo either; too much work to do in the office for the overeducated legal immigrants. You'd think with all the biotech guys I've done visas for over the years, one of them would have figured out how to clone me by now.

P.S. Whatever happened to "compassionate conservatism"?

I do have a sense of humour, it's simply not obvious enough for all comers.

As for 'compassionate conservatism' I am very much in favour of compassion directed to real results generating efforts, rather than wooley headed left bandaidism and count-productive bollocks.

Of course, I am also in favour of liberal immigration rules to allow a free flow of labour to match capital, but right now, what happens in the US is.... well American domestic politics.

"Can't be a bleeding heart liberal if one doesn't have a heart to begin with"

I've been called a psycho for stating this before, but what the heck: A heart is a very useful tool to have if you're able to force it into submission to your rational thinking. Controlled feelings (including such overrated ones like love or underrated ones like hatred) can be excellent catalyzers for efficient decision implementation or "daily operation management", if you can create them and eliminate them at will. It frees some brain chips for better multitasking: you can do more pipelining between the decision making process, more CPU consuming, and the operational management one, more mechanical.

Left vs right bash, yay!

A heart is a very useful tool to have if you're able to force it into submission to your rational thinking.

Entirely agree. That's why 'it's my money' isn't an argument on tax rates.

You troll. There's much more to it than it's my money, but I'm not going there again.

And yes, it's my goddamn money.

There are plenty of good arguments in favor of figuring out a way to legalize most of the illegal aliens in the United States. Not one has anything whatsoever to do with "human rights."

There is no "human right" to sneak into the country of your choice, even if it's the States. Treating the "plight" of illegal aliens there as a "human rights" issue denigrates real human rights violations.

Anonymous: You talk as if the U.S. had done everything in its power to stop these immigrants at the border, and deny them opportunity once there, like for example routinely check on restaurants to see if they hire undocumented workers. The U.S. has a regime that tacitly approves of illegal immigration in order to provide it with a cheap and pliant labour force. (See the restaurant lobby's efforts to stop efforts restrict this immigration.) 25% of Mexico's adult workforce works in the U.S., most without recognition. I mean, theirs is not the most egregious situation, but not calling it a human rights problem because there are worse ones out there is quite pedantic. There are a whole slew of human rights; claiming justice on some of them does not denature the case of those who are in a position to demand justice on a wider array of them.

Also, it's not your money. It's legal tender issued by the federal reserve.

Enough handwaving. I'll ask again. What "human rights" specifically are we talking about?

Anon - I'm sure Eva L. can answer this much better than I, but illegal immigrants are, first, supposed to enjoy the same rights as other humans and, second, supposed to enjoy the protection of whatever conventions and treaties the host country has signed on immigration, that would apply also to illegals. As I'm sure you know, many are having both sets of rights violated on a routine basis. Demonstration-worthy or not, that's another issue, but it's not "handwaving" to point out that the problem exists, and not only exists, but destroys thousands of lives every year. Compare with criminals, if you need to: there's no human right to steal stuff, but prisoners do have rights, and surprisingly often, they are badly violated. A problem? Well, that's point of view. Being a pinko-commie rule of law-liberal, I certainly think so.

But now for some MENA entertainment.

Anon: to whom are you directing your question about human rights? If it was me, well, I mostly used the phrase because it amused me to think of Lounsbury, et al. wrapped in Mexican flags, and chanting"¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!"

Seriously, though - even if people enter the U.S. illegally, and even if you believe that they shold all be sent back where they came from, they have a right not to be treated like some sort of subhuman slime. No, respect isn't a basic human right like the right not to be tortured, but it's a simple enough one to grant.

You guys have the highest concentration of waffley goodness this side of Brussels. I ran both of the above posts through my semantic de-coder and I got . . . nothing, nothing at all.

illegal immigrants are, first, supposed to enjoy the same rights as other humans and, second, supposed to enjoy the protection of whatever conventions and treaties the host country has signed on immigration, that would apply also to illegals.

p->p

Yes, illegal immigrants are humans and illegal immigrants are entitled to the protection of any treaties that the U.S. has signed that protect illegal immigrants.

As I'm sure you know, many are having both sets of rights violated on a routine basis.

p

No, I don't know that. That's why I asked for specifics.

Demonstration-worthy or not, that's another issue, but it's not "handwaving" to point out that the problem exists, and not only exists, but destroys thousands of lives every year.

p

Again, with the bald, fact-free assertion. I'm asking you to tell us, specifically, what problems illegal immigrants in the U.S. regularly -- or even semi-regularly -- experience that rise to the level of human rights violations.

Compare with criminals, if you need to: there's no human right to steal stuff, but prisoners do have rights, and surprisingly often, they are badly violated.

Some HR are R
Some P are R
Therefore . . . nothing.

A particularly useless analogy. While prisoners do have rights, and while those rights may often be violated, not all "rights" are human rights. There are many sources of rights in a civilized society and prisoners in the U.S. have many granted to them which in no way arise to the level of "human rights." Prisoners in some states may have a legally cognizable right to read "Playboy" magazine but violating that right isn't a human rights violation. In fact, very few U.S. prisoner's rights violations rise to the level of human rights violations.

So we have a tautology, two assertions and a false analogy. And still no actual answer to the question.

Seriously, though - even if people enter the U.S. illegally, and even if you believe that they shold all be sent back where they came from, they have a right not to be treated like some sort of subhuman slime.

I don't really know of any widespread treatment of illegals as "subhuman slime." The vast majority, in fact, seem to be getting on rather well.

No, respect isn't a basic human right like the right not to be tortured, but it's a simple enough one to grant.

So now we come to it. It's not really about "human rights," it's about "Respek."

Absurd. As I said, there are many good arguments in favor of legalization. But neither human rights nor enhancing illegal immigrants' self-esteem is among them.

"Today we march. Tomorrow we vote." is a slogan demanding political, not human, rights. Trying to pretend that the massive population of illegal immigrants have some sort of human right to immediate citizenship is cynical, dishonest and devalues the moral currency of real human rights violations. In the end, all you achieve is provding cover to places like China who like nothing better than to spout off about imagined (and, sadly, occasionally real) American "human rights violations" when they are being confronted about things like slave labour.

not to detract from the very interesting flame war but... did I just see E use a smiley face?

Seconded. Can't be a bleeding heart liberal if one doesn't have a heart to begin with :)

why yes, yes i did. this place really has gone downhill. thank god E's heart still beats with a metallic sound or else all would be lost!

hmm seems TypeKey isn't working for me agian...

Well, perhaps you should define what kind of rights and violations you're talking about instead, since you're obviously trying to make some sort of linguistic point about what is a "human" right here, and what is not. I'm sure you've read news reports about what kinds of problems illegal immigrants may face, so I don't think that's the issue.

But, if you want this to be about some libertarian natural rights gah-gah, then count me out right away.

Trying to pretend that the massive population of illegal immigrants have some sort of human right to immediate citizenship

I don't know where you are getting this from my initial offhanded comment above, but I said nothing of the sort here (or anywhere else, for that matter).

But let's be real - even the most generous of the proposals on the table is talking about a multi-year route to permanent residency, including all the normal background checks and filing fees and forms and bureaucratic hassles, and from permanent residency it's at least a 5-year wait (and another round of fees, background checks, paperwork, etc.) to citizenship. So don't start with this crap that anyone is getting a free pass to anything whatsoever.

Plus there are more than 3 million U.S. citizen children living in households with at least one member with no lawful immigration status. Those children, once they turn 21, will be able to petition for their parents to immigrate - plus in many cases one parent is here legally, but due to quota-induced backlogs, it currently takes years for even the spouse of a permanent resident to get a green card. "Today we march, tomorrow we vote" doesn't have to be a threat - it can easily be a promise.

Plus are you ready to get rid of about 5% of the civilian workforce at one fell swoop, much more in some industries? I'm not.

Aren't...since we're talking about human rights, how many countries have made the UN ones law anyway? Can't be that many. It's a 'strategy of decree' to claim that human rights are law, when following them is really a matter of conscience. Signing up to the UN HR declaration is so very very non-binding.

Not what Eva said, mind you. Just throwing some thoughts out. What they should do is use 1 billion $ to close down the border properly and naturalize the 12 million illegals, to fix the labour system. I understand some Spanish have also heavily exploited illegals from Africa. Messes up the labour system entirely, undercuts laws by virtue of the illegality of the practice. That, of course, is why they do it.

Just a reminder that neither the Lounsbury nor Eerie are US residents...so the immigration issues in the US shouldn't be exactly high on their priority list anyways....

Just finished watching the Republican debate on-line. The highlight had to be a question directed at Giuliani, "What's the difference between Sunnis and Shites?"

Giuliani stumbled through an answer that showed that he kinda sorta knew that it had something to do with selecting the Caliph.

But the whole time he was answering the question, he looked like he was going to be physically sick. Priceless.

Having said that, his answer was much better than George Bush's who, when asked about the Taliban in a pre-9/11 interview, thought they were a musical group.

The Dogs Of War, and the wonders of outsourcing.

Two different PMs. We may hope.

Btw is there still any interest in a weekend in Berlin?

As a late follow-up to the Algeria discussions before, I just happened to stumble over a statement by Hugh Roberts to the British parliament; it contains an excellent walkthrough of the Algerian political landscape, and is very up to date still. (The only major events since are that Bouteflika has pushed through his national reconciliation scheme, with mixed success, and that the GSPC has officially transformed into an al-Qaida branch.)

Just thought I'd put it up here, if anyone is interested.

Another item of interest re immigration debate, a comparison of social mobility across Western countries, via Washington Monthly. Original tiny PEW report here. Apart from Denmark kicking ass as per usual, it's interesting to see UK and France so close together in sowing up society. I suspect UK's, France's and USA's various education systems have some say in this lack of social mobility. But it's not all that flattering for the free market society model either.