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May Day Boycott

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J

jp*81

Guest
This was the message in my email.

Buy something on May 1st!!!!

On Monday, May 1, 2006 the illegal aliens are threatening to do
absolutely no shopping of any kind. They want to show America how
powerful their numbers are by staying home and by not spending their
money at the stores; to show us how much we need them. - In response,
every American should go to at least one store and buy at least one
item. It doesn't take much of our time or money. Let's send our message
out that we won't be pushed around and bullied. If Americans don't do
something, and just stand around and watch these aggressive demands WE
ARE GOING TO LOSE OUR COUNTRY IN OUR LIFETIME.

Shop on May 1 - and pass this on to all your friends and relatives.
 

Briscoeteque

One of the Regulars
Messages
224
Location
Lewiston, Maine
Heck, if one day's boycott affects these businesses so much, these immigrants must contribute quite a bit, illegal or not. That email's silly. If this boycott affects anything, then guess what, we very well may need them. Counter-acting the boycott for one day wouldn't do anything, are all of these 'Americans' willing to keep up the buying power of another household indefinately just to show these immigrants who's boss? That's rediculous.
 

Pilgrim

One Too Many
Messages
1,719
Location
Fort Collins, CO
Here are my thoughts:

I think this is not an unreasonable way for immigrants to the US (legal and illegal) to simply demonstrate how many of them there are. One days' revenue for a business should not make or break them, but it may get the attention of the idalogues who want all immigrants to "go back to Iimmigrantland where they came from". It will make the economic impact of these folks visible, and hopefully provoke a more thoughtful and less ideology-driven discussion.

Related thoughts:

- If there are 11 million illegal immigrants in the US, it should be obvious to all that we can't just order buses for 11 million to drive them South. We MUST find a way to assimilate a significant number of them, because it is a logistical impossibility to identify and remove them. Besides, the US is a huge country and we do have the ability to assimilate a large number of immigrants every year...and we should do so.

- Mexicans may be the largest group of illegal immigrants, but they are by no means the only ones. Plenty of people from countries across the world enter the US constantly from both Mexico and Canada.

- A fence between the US and Mexico is a ridiculous, economically and logistically impossible idea. It staggers me that presumably intelligent people even discuss this idea! A fence of that type would be much like an ocean breakwater - the tide of immigrants would be breaking against it and wearing it down constantly. If you add up the astronomical expense of building such a fence, installing surveillance equipment along it, maintaining the fence and surveillance equipment, and (according to the estimates I've heard) tripling the size of the Border Patrol to staff and repair it, you will have an economic drain that looks like the Iraq war. And that maintenance and staffing drain will be there every year, until the US gives up on the idea, reduces the size of the Border Patrol staff, and lets the fence drop into disrepair. It absolutely CANNOT work, based on even a moment's thought about the simple budgetary and logistical issues.

- The answer is also NOT to do nothing. We need to help Mexico improve its economy, and insist on doing so in ways that require reductions in governmental corruption. We do need increased Border Patrols - and we need to increase US taxes to pay for them, because we can't keep spending more than we bring in - but we need to set realistic goals for them, and zero illegal immigration is impossible to achieve. We need a naturalization and assimilation strategy for a significant number of the immigrants already in the US, and we need to come up with a way to enforce employer hiring that is logistically manageable and allows employers to find the workers they need.

- Folks, we need to raise taxes as an investment in America. We need to pay our war bills, move much faster on finding alternative energy sources, pay for immigration reform, and provide some kind of universal health care.

I don't have perfect answers, but trying to achieve Isolationism is NOT the answer. It flies in the face of reality.

Wasn't there someone else waiting for the soapbox?:eek:
 

Pilgrim

One Too Many
Messages
1,719
Location
Fort Collins, CO
Aaron, I know how you feel, and BTW - thanks for the absolutely lovely silk hat bands you sent in resposne to my recent order. They are tasteful, nicely made and look great, and I recommend them to all Fedora Loungers.

I don't like saying that we will have to raise taxes, but over the last few years, one party has changed the rhetoric of discussion to make all taxes seem bad and all government wasteful. In fact, taxes are necessary and most governmental agencies are running on starvation budgets.

In fact, taxes are how we pay the bills in the US, and when the budget is out of balance, taxes are an "investment in the US" that we must make. Maybe we already pay enough. If that's the case, let's get out of Iraq and do whatever else it takes to reduce our bills. Tell Dubya, will someone?

We are not paying our bills, and that means we will have to raise taxes. I don't have to like it, but I can see it. Clinton handed over a budget surplus, but it's gone, due both to very bad luck with the economy and an avoidable war. How else are we going to pay for the war? How else are we going to repair bridges and highways nationwide? How else are ge going to rebuild Louisiana and Mississippi? How else are we going to deal with a health system that funnels more people into Emergency Rooms every year, which is absolutely the most expensive way to provide health care? (We could probably buy a health care plan for the folks who use Energency Rooms and come out ahead.)

And related to the border fence issue, how else would we going to pay for a 2000-mile long fence, plus tripling the size of the Border patrol?

I read an article in Rolling Stone this week (May 4 issue: Is George W. Bush the Worst President in US History?) that had this interesting item in it: the current administration has borrowed more money from other countries since its 1998 election that the total of ALL the monies the US has borrowed from other countries in the 200+ years since the founding of the United States. Think of it - more in the last 8 years than the 200+ that preceded it. That includes two World Wars. That fact doesn't make me comfortable.

What's the solution? Part of it is to pay our bills. Sad but true.:eek:fftopic:
 

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
I pity the sheep mentality that begs a government to raise taxes. The enormous amount of waste in our tax system, the incredible burden on the middle class; look what an increase in gas prices is doing to families; God help us if we raised taxes, especially to support criminals streaming across our borders.

You see, it is a crime to enter this country illegally. It is also unfair to all of the other folks who do enter this country legally and have to wait for decades to get legal status. To reward this behavior is to encourage it.

It is also false to say that we cannot round them up and ship them back. We have done that in the past. In the 1950s close to three million illegals were rounded up in Texas and sent back. It went very smoothly, though the program had an unfortunate name I will not repeat here.

Though, I am not advocating this.

I believe in cutting off the illegal flow, though not through the means that Mexico patrols its Southern border; that is, with Mexican troops who shoot on sight, but rather with a beefed-up Border patrol, that can act as a defensive wall.

A country that can no longer enforce its borders ceases to be a country. We cannot tolerate chaos on our borders, nor a discrepency between peoples wishing to enter.

We are granting amnesty to dishwashers from South of the border and denying visas to Doctors from India. If you want to change the revenue base in this country do it through the old fashioned tenents of capitalism: Allow talented people into this country who will create wealth: doctors and computer engineers, scientists and tradesmen. These people pay taxes, buy homes, send their children to college and build the tax base of every municipality they enter.

It would take three generations for a dishwasher to contribute a fraction of what a highly skilled worked from another country would, and in the meantime they are a huge drain on our economy.

The propagandists say that they add to our economy. The do not. When the Center for Immigration Studies survey came back, it found a discrepency of $30 billion.

Remember, when your parents and grandparents came to this country, they had to be sponsored by someone here and they had to have a trade and show proof they could support themselves. Why aren't we enforcing the same policies.

The sad news is these people are not coming to America to be Americans, they are coming here to colonize us. They want our culture to bend to theirs, while they will not budge to assimilate to ours.

Look at how they changed the words to our National Anthem, speaking about "mean laws."? And their boycott will hurt the very folks that are employing them. It's utter nonsense.

I also fear a backlash and a huge one. I cannot imagine the shape it will take, but I believe it will be powerful.

But you know, there are a lot of voices in this debate and most of them have their hearts in the right place. I worry about the direction of this country and our politicians inability to lead on this issue. We are denegrading our own workforce and creating a permanent underclass. It bodes poorly and reflects darkly on our values.

BTW, Pilgrim, Bush was elected in 2000, not 1998 and that statistic from Rolling Stone is utter nonsense.
 

Briscoeteque

One of the Regulars
Messages
224
Location
Lewiston, Maine
Cool, if they add nothing to our economy, then the choice to do nothing economic for one day won't have any effects.

And who says to immigrate here you have to assimilate? I'd like to be more ethinic than I am.

And while you may think illegal immigration is dishonorable, you seem to imply that being a dishwasher or a day laborer is dishonorable, and being a rich doctor is the only way to contribute.
 

Katt in Hat

A-List Customer
Messages
353
Location
The Gold Coast of Florida
Unfortunate Name? Operation Wetback, Perhaps???

The mentality is still the same. Just in sharper cloak. How can you bear living in Massachusetts?

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/OO/pqo1_print.html

A partial quote from above ^.


Q "It is also false to say that we cannot round them up and ship them back. We have done that in the past. In the 1950s close to three million illegals were rounded up in Texas and sent back. It went very smoothly, though the program had an unfortunate name I will not repeat here.

Though, I am not advocating this." /Q

Yet another wedge issue floated by a crowd with no ideas other than the retention of power and control.
 

Pilgrim

One Too Many
Messages
1,719
Location
Fort Collins, CO
Hemingway, thanks for your reasoned commentary and exchange.

There is indeed virtue and logic to espousing the capitalistic system as a way to increase governmental revenues. Indeed, a big part of the political debate today is the question of how to create that specific effect.

As to the roundup, what was possible in the 1950's in terms of laws and civil rights (legal or illegal) isn't exactly what is possible today. You and I disagree about the possibility of deporting 11 million people, and we probably will continue to do so. However, I appreciate your not advocating that action, possible or not. Many of the 11 million people are productive members of US society and they contribute substantially to the economy.

I think you and I might agree that the issue is not whether we want to provide the opportunity for immigration - but how much immigration, over what time period, and how to structure and administer such a system so that it is manageable. What we have not is not manageable, nor is it being managed.

The May Day sales demonstration will, I think, be an interesting experiment in how much of our economy is bound up in the debate.
 

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
Gentlemen, don't pile on me. Take out your anger on people whose opinions matter. ;) lol You have to learn to address the issues and not smear the people who are engaging you in debate. An ad hominem argument has never swayed anyone. ;)

Yes, Brico illegal immigration is dishonorable; it is breaking the law, breaking the law is dishonorable. No other way to look at that one.

I pass no judgements on people's work. I am discussing economic realities in regards to growing an economy and a tax base.

Do you remember when the cities emptied in the early seventies? All of the talented people with high earning jobs moved to suburbs which prospered while the cities grew full of low wage earners who could not add to the cities economic health and those cities collapsed. Some, like Newark, Camden, and Detroit never fully recovered. This is where the entire country could head if we followed the same model.

And Brisco, I don't think that following your ethnicity necessitates changing this nation's laws as these folks are advocating. Their entire agenda is to alter the legal landscape of this country. I love cultures and stive to learn all I can from them, but if I were to move to France, I wouldn't expect the French to change their language, traditions, and laws to accomodate me. I would acquire a functional level of Frenchness.

Katt said:
Yet another wedge issue floated by a crowd with no ideas other than the retention of power and control.
Nope. I was merely addressing Pilgrim's assertion, and others who share the same view that it couldn't be done. It can be done and it has been done. Though I clearly stated that I would be against such a thing being done and went on to explain why.

Once again, keep to the issues and stop attacking the people or you will never learn. It is so easy to refute false charges.

I see both sides of the issue and believe that a compromise will be found. I imagine and hope it will be along the lines of common sense: stop the flow of illegals from coming, bring order to the process of immigration, and help those that are here now to assimilate fairly.

I also believe that this protest goes to far and will send the wrong message to the American people. It is starting to look like an invasion and I believe it may be percieved as such.
 

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
Pilgrim, I just read your message as it was written while I wrote mine.
I find it hard to disagree with any of it. It is measured, cordial, and constructive. I have a renewed respect for you, my friend!

Intelligent gentlemen may disagree without being disagreable. And it seems that in this case we don't even disagree.
 

The Captain

One of the Regulars
Drugs-R-us!

As one who spent thirty-one years in San Diego County, I feel that I have a good grasp of the illegal-alien issue. Long gone are the days of the bracero and the knock on your door by a man with a hoe over his shoulder, asking if there was any trabajo to be had. Those were basically, honest, hard-working men. Fast-forward to me having to accompany my wife to the store, because she was a little nervous to find several men standing around her car - sitting on the hood! - and uttering something in Spanish while they leered at her. I counted close to one hundred "immigrants" hanging around, waiting for some work. If no work was handy, the stores in the shopping area were subject to a little smash and grab come nightfall.
If you haven't lived near the border you don't have a clue how bad it is.
Now, Mexico is passing legislation to make it easier to feed a drug habit. I read this, along with an extensive article, on the San Diego Tribunes on-line website.

Drug limits
List of maximum allowable drug quantities approved for personal use by Mexico's Congress:

Opium: (raw, to be smoked): 5 grams

Heroin: 25 milligrams

Marijuana: 5 grams

Cocaine: 500 milligrams

LSD: .015 milligrams

MDA: 200 milligrams

MDMA (Ecstasy): 200 milligrams

Mescaline: 1 gram

Peyote: 1 kilogram

Psilocybin (concentrate, pure, active ingredient): 100 milligrams

Hallucinogenic mushrooms (raw, off the farm): 250 milligrams

Amphetamines: 100 milligrams

Dexamphetamines: 40 milligrams

Phencyclidine (PCP, or Angel Dust): 7 milligrams

Methamphetamines: 200 milligrams

Nalbuphine (synthetic opiate): 10 milligrams

SOURCE: Associated Press
 

Katt in Hat

A-List Customer
Messages
353
Location
The Gold Coast of Florida
Two sets of rules.The talking points style guide.

Quote from H.J. "I pity the sheep mentality that begs a government to raise taxes." PITY, SHEEP
-----------------------------------------------
Quotes from H.J. "Gentlemen, don't pile on me. Take out your anger on people whose opinions matter. You have to learn to address the issues and not smear the people who are engaging you in debate. An ad hominem argument has never swayed anyone." PILE ON,SMEAR, AD HOMINEM

"Once again, keep to the issues and stop attacking the people or you will never learn. It is so easy to refute false charges." ATTACKING, FALSE CHARGES

Hem uses freighted terms yet would deny such usage to others. In effect, Don't do as I do; Do as I say that you should do.

Why could Hemingway Jones not say the name? OPERATION WETBACK?

The Texas Historical Association COULD.
 

Fedorista

Familiar Face
Messages
73
Nail the criminals who hire illegals.

These are the folk that keep wages in many industries too low for honest, tax paying Americans to seek employment in them.

Honest American businesses cannot pay worthwhile wages and compete with these bottomfeeders.
 

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
Katt in Hat said:
Quote from H.J. "I pity the sheep mentality that begs a government to raise taxes." PITY, SHEEP
-----------------------------------------------
Quotes from H.J. "Gentlemen, don't pile on me. Take out your anger on people whose opinions matter. You have to learn to address the issues and not smear the people who are engaging you in debate. An ad hominem argument has never swayed anyone." PILE ON,SMEAR, AD HOMINEM

"Once again, keep to the issues and stop attacking the people or you will never learn. It is so easy to refute false charges." ATTACKING, FALSE CHARGES

Hem uses freighted terms yet would deny such usage to others. In effect, Don't do as I do; Do as I say that you should do.

Why could Hemingway Jones not say the name? OPERATION WETBACK?

The Texas Historical Association COULD.
Katt, I simply cannot shake you and this has become an argument of the absurd. I cannot reason with you and I cannot befriend you, so I will not engage you, except to say this:

You see, once again, and look at your examples above in which I attack a sheep mentality, I defend myself, a become self-depracating, and never once attack a specific person personally, to use a redundancy. You, however, will not extend the same courtesy to me.

And yes, I would not say that term because I find it deplorable, as I do the action, but it is possible, another subtlety you missed.

So, I will ask you to please stop focusing on me. There is nothing to be learned here. And I will go learn how to use that "Ignore" button.
 

Hemingway Jones

I'll Lock Up
Bartender
Messages
6,099
Location
Acton, Massachusetts
Katt in Hat said:
Or I'll hold my breath until I turn blue...
OK. You've convinced me of that and gave me a good laugh. lol

Let's just leave it at that and agree to disagree. That way, when I run into you at some event, I can buy you a drink without feeling guilty about it. :)
 

shamus

Suspended
Messages
801
Location
LA, CA
I remember a few years back about another group of people living in the US that wanted something...

hmm can't remember what though...

I know they were looked down upon as a sub-group on not "True" Americans and if memory serves me right, they boycotted riding busses or something down south...

hmmm, who was that group?
 
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