[MaggieL]

Originally Posted by billybob

You live in Pennsylvania.According to the statistics, you have less than one quarter the national average of Latinos in your community.... Or are you just picking up a debate from the other side of the continent because your personal prejudices dictate that you must support it, rather than admit that it's a non-event in your town? As I recall, Pennsylvania is just about as far from the Mexican border as you can get without jumping into the sea.

Pennsylvania is a community? Quaint thought....in fact it's got about half the land area of all of New Zealand. Philadelphia and Potter counties will be amazed to discover they're in the same community. So will their legislators.

Maybe you should try your numbers by postal code: in my case 19403. Then tell the mayor of Norristown that he doesn't really need to issue identity documents to the illegals in his city, because he thinks he does; he says it's making it difficult to provide them with services. (But then, being expert in US politics, you know what whiners the Democrats are.) It may come as quite a shock to him that he doesn't have a problem with illegals, or with the slumlords that are renting them hovels to live in...until they burn down, at least.

While you're at it, tell the local school district that they couldn't possibly have a lot of children of illegals to teach. After all, Mexico is such a long distance away, it might actuallly take almost two days to drive here. Nobody who did a desert crossing at night could have the motivation to spend two days on an interstate highway...the horror.

The crew looking for work at the Home Depot or other day laborer hiring spots every morning will be comforted by your assurance that they can't possibly be illegals, and will thus immediately petition for union membership. The ER staff (I have family members on that staff) at the local hospital will be relieved to hear that the hospital won't be closing as announced and that their waiting room isn't actually filled with illegals who have no other health care and no way to pay for the care they do get.

It's so comforting to have your expert advice on problems happening right here from...what was it you said? "A continent away"? Surely NZ's a bit further than that. But it seems that you think illegal immigrants are only a problem near the southern border...and that's flat out not true. How much time *did* you spend *anywhere* in the US? And when? Whereabouts?

Originally Posted by billybob

Short of ethnic cleansing,there is no way to solve this issue permanently and decisively.

Which is true of most issues. I'd settle for allieviating it...and throtlling the source of illegal employment would be an extremely good start. We can't make 8,000 miles of border as impervious as the shoreline of NZ, but we can certainly reduce the financial payback for breaking the law, withougt building even one more mile of fence.

Originally Posted by billybob

Your final comment - a throw-away line intended to taunt the opponent and amuse your audience,was too weak.

Oooooh....struck a nerve. But wasn't a taunt...it was a question, one I notice you still haven't answered. Maybe you were lying when you said you were lying when you said you started in Mexico. I guess we'll never know which was a lie.

Originally Posted by billybob

Perhaps you could advise me of how many latinos your local branch of the INS has detained and repatriated this year?

I can put some limits on it, though: somewhere between not as many as they could have and many more than I want to pay for. These days deporatation is usually reserved for illegal aliens who are also violent felons, because putting them on a plane is cheaper than putting them in jail.

As I said before, deportation is futile and pointless, the illegals will just turn around and come back as long as there's such a strong financial incentive for them to be here. Deportation may have been a winning strategy for Europeans in the era of steamship travel...it's a joke within North America today.

"Detained and repatrirated" sounds so much nicer than "arrested and deported"...it's a euphemism worthy of saying "undocumented worker" when you really mean "illegal alien".

Originally Posted by billybob

I can't offer a solution to the problem of racial diversity, because I don't see it as a problem.

I don't either.

If you recall, the issue is illegal immigration. It just makes you feel so morally superior to try to paint it as racism, but it isn't.

I'm perfectly OK with my good friend who's a legal Mexican immigrant: a very successful software engineer in San Francisco...and I'd have as big a problem with lilly white illegals, be they from Canada, Europe, Russia, or elsewhere.

It makes me laugh when hear European and French Canadian kids complain of "racism" when they have trouble getting help with their programming homework online. But that's how tired that line has gotten; anything an American does you don't like obviously must be due to racism.

What a load of hooey.

Originally Posted by billybob

1. It is silly to take the position that you know more than I do on the subject simply because you live on the same continent.

I live in the same neighborhood, within less than five miles of every situation I cited above...and I've been "across the continent" (by which I assume you mean California) for extended periods. You admitted you haven't set foot there ever.

Originally Posted by billybob

2. It is not smart to crap on newbies, particularly if you pick on those who are smarter than you.

Well, I'll keep my own counsel on who's smarter. Especially when they're a loudmouth about how smart they are; that's usually a deep counterindication.

Originally Posted by billybob

3.It's not smart to generalise that the whole of America is on your side and I am simply 'yank bashing'.

II'll keep my own counsel on what's "yank bashing" too; I certainly see enough of it to recognise it. As for how widely my opinons are shared amongst the citizens here, you must not be reading the same polls I am.