So a nasty woman came to our DFA meeting tonight

[proud2BlibKansan]

We had a meeting on immigration topics. And this horrible woman came. Our first speaker was a Dem party rep who talked about how to get involved at the local level, how to become a precinct captain, etc. She was talking about some of the legislation the repubs are trying to pass at the state capitol and she mentioned a bill where they are asking for birth certificates to register to vote. And she said this is a poll tax since the birth certificates cost money. So this lady yells out "That is NOT a poll tax!" And the Dem party lady asked "How do you figure that?" and the nasty lady says "You only have to buy ONE birth certificate, not a new one every time you vote." Our DFA president then asked the lady not to interrupt and let the speaker have the floor. So she got quiet.

Then our next speakers took the floor. They were there to talk about immigration.

We had a local immigration attorney and a guy who has written several books about the anti-immigration movement. The nasty lady kept yelling out arguing with them. She was just incredibly rude. Some of the things she said:

These people (immigrants) are ruining our American culture.

There is nothing wrong with wanting a "pure" American country.

Mexicans are bringing diseases to the US.

We need to decide when we no longer need diversity in the USA.

The American people have a right to limit the size of our population.

We should not spend our tax dollars to educate foreigners.

We have a right to the kind of society our forefathers only dreamed about. (I think she meant a white society)

The guy who was the author said this is NOT an economic issue and it is wrong for progressives to argue on that level. He claimed that the anti-immigration folks are trying to frame it as an economic issue, but it is really about race. The nasty lady really went nuts then and said that is was dishonest for us to throw out the racist label.

By that time, I was ready to throw something at this woman. But instead of doing that, I got up and went over and looked at the sign in sheet where she had written her name and email address. It was

[e-mail]

And that little light bulb in my brain came on. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer

[purduejake]

1. I have issues with illegal immigration.

But that certainly does not make it about race.

[BlooInBloo]

3. It never does.

[purduejake]

15. So I'm a racist because I think we need to better control immigration?

Who knows what kind of people are pouring through our borders and it is certainly partially responsible for straining our social systems. It's easy to make little comments like that, but you're not even willing to tell me how my views are racist.

edit: and by kind of people, I'm talking about the "kind" that carry WMD's, drugs, and other things we're probably better off without. That has nothing to do with race.

[BlooInBloo]

17. The KKK is on your side, fighting very hard - that's certainly suggestive.

[purduejake]

21. And the TERRORISTS and DRUG DEALERS are on yours.

What's that say about you? You're being disingenuous and silly.

[BlooInBloo]

23. Nothing - they're not domestic; hence, apples&oranges.

[purduejake]

24. HUH?

You're done wasting my time. You use the same logic as the neocons and throw back responses that don't even make sense.

[Warren DeMontague]

31. "Terrorists and Drug Dealers"?

You mean, the CIA?

[silverojo]

41. As well as the Bush administration and the Mexican govt.

Now THAT'S suggestive. Any time you're on the same side as Dubya, you KNOW you're on the wrong side.

[proud2BlibKansan]

50. This lady at our meeting WAS most definitely a racist

She kept talking about nationalism and wanting a "pure" American society. In fact, she was a perfect example of what our speaker was talking about. That doesn't mean EVERYONE who wants tighter borders is a racist. But in her case, the shoe fits.

[purduejake]

60. That's not the point.

You said "He claimed that the anti-immigration folks are trying to frame it as an economic issue, but it is really about race" and that's what I took issue with.

Why do you keep trying to change this into a debate about whether she is a racist or not? I'm not disputing that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

64. This guy has spent years studying it and has written several books

So I will defer to his judgment. And if you examine the talking points of the anti-immigration crowd, it's hard NOT to call them racist.

[jobycom]

30. Depends on why and how you want to "better" control immigration.

Not a snark post, I'm being analytical. If you are of the opinion that the US economy can only handle a certain size population, and you want to limit that population through a consistent formula that balances immigration against childbirths and deaths to maintain some equilibrium, I would say that's not racist. We could then argue about the validity of the economic and demographic formulas, of course, but I would say your assumptions are based on economics, however faulty, rather than race or culture.

If you are of the opinion that our culture is somehow being compromised, and we as Americans have the right to control how many and what type of people unlucky enough to be born outside of our arbitrary legal borders are allowed to work and live inside the borders that we through no virtue of our own were born within in order to protect our "pure" culture--as the person the OP was implied to have argued--then I'd say you have, if not racist, at least elitist attitudes. However, you didn't argue that, so I'm assuming you don't believe it.

Your argument that illegal immigrants are somehow likely to carry WMDs, drugs and other things "we're probably better off without" to me smacks of cultural or racial bias, if not outright racism, though. The drugs are coming here because our citizens are using them (go to the Lounge and see how many people brag about using the crap), so even if they are crossing the border with illegal aliens, as opposed to legal immigrants or American citizens, that is the fault of our citizens for creating the demand. And they are probably not coming across with illegal immigrants, anyway. As for WMDs, it's silly to think that controlling immigration is going to affect some crazed individual or some dastardly organization who can afford to make such a device. As with the drugs, they're more likely to get such things into the country through legal visitors or American citizens. Think of 9-11. Who would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, years of planning, and all the negotiating, scheming, plotting with other governments and other organizations, and everything else it would take to get even the most rudimentary nuclear, biological, or chemical weapon, and have no better plan to get it into the country than to give it to a poor migrant worker and hope he's one of the few that makes it across the border without getting caught? That's a low-percentage yield even if he wasn't carrying a nuke on his back--something he couldn't do, anyway.

The people to fear are the people legally here. Watch the news. Even here in Texas, you rarely see an illegal immigrant killing a citizen, much less smuggling a dirty bomb into San Antonio. The 9-11 hijackers were here legally, so controlling immigration wouldn't have affected that plot one bit. Our biggest threats come from people here legally, because no one will risk a complicated plot on the whims of border patrol agents. So my gut instinct any time I hear someone fear an unlikely occurence involving a non-white or non-American when the fear is much more valid involving a white American is to suspect a racial assumption, if not racism.

[proud2BlibKansan]

51. Great post!

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Well, we should end the fucking farce that is the drug war, that's for sure.

What consenting adults who aren't harming anyone else want to do with their own bodies and bloodstreams isn't the government's fucking purview, IMHO.

As for "WMDs", seeing as the vast majority of terrorist acts committed in this country in the past 15 years were done by white, Christian males, I would suspect that they managed to arm themselves just fine without any illegal immigrant help, Mexican or otherwise.

I actually agree with you, in a fashion; I think either we should acknowledge that our borders are open, or we have the right to try to control them.

However, I think all that scare Whitey Q. Suburbia bullshit about Drug-Dealin' WMD bearin' Al Qaeda Mexicans is just AM radio rightwing babble. Most of those folks are coming here to work their asses off. If one wants to "do something" about illegal immigrants, the place to start is the companies that hire them, IMHO.

[blondeatlast]

52. "What kind of people...?" Yeah, like those filthy Irish...

And so it goes--my ancestors came over during the famine. Nobody wanted them around either.

Edit: typo.

[mmonk]

53. You need to go visit the detention camps

and prisons where people, even children, are held without charge nor contact with their friends or family and come back and tell us the anti-immigration movement and such incarcerations are ok.

[treestar]

5. The laws we have are too stupid to be believed

Compared to other countries' laws, and the way we deliberately don't enforce them and then grant amnesty every once in a while and get the immigrants realizing it is that way and counting on it makes sticking to the "illegal" point rather silly - if you understood how absurd these laws are in operation, you wouldn't be so stuck on the mere fact that people violate them. We practically invite people to violate them.

We need a real revamp (not just the tinkering that has gone on for the past 20 years).

[Richard Steele]

19. These things are the way they are for valid reasons, not "stupidity".

"Valid" to you or me? Maybe not. But VERY valid to the
wealthiest elite in the USA, who stand to lose money
if the current state of affairs becomes "less stupid"
in any way.

They've worked hard to make things the way they are, and
they plan to keep them that way.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. It wasn't so much that she sounded like a racist

She was just so damn rude.

[Spangle]

13. No other way to do it

Seriously. Could you walk into a room and be the odd ball out and bring up an opposing view in a situation like that, in a NICE way. You would have to work yourself up to do it, and that alone would put you in a state that would make you come off rude, etc.

Not excusing it, just pointing out the human nature, etc.

[proud2BlibKansan]

49. That's true but she really was rude

She yelled out several times, interrupting the speaker. And her body language was pretty hostile.

[orleans]

29. did you try her email yet? is it legit?

you know, just a little "thank you for attending the meeting tonight," bullshit.

[proud2BlibKansan]

55. No but we are doing that today

[treestar]

2. What is a "pure America?"

Xenophobes are so ignorant, they say the same things today that their 19th century predecessors said.

[proud2BlibKansan]

56. I don't know but I know I don't like the sounds of it.

[ThomCat]

4. Racists always insist it's wrong to call people racist.

x(

Go figure.

I hope everyone else there saw her for the bigot that she is, and I hope it galvanized some people to get a bit more involved in helping do some good.

[BlooInBloo]

6. DUers do that too. (The classes are of course not mutually exclusive.)

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. She really did come off like a bigot.

[karlrschneider]

9. immigrants -> native Americans -> smallpox

eom

[silverojo]

16. Mexicans aren't native to America

They're native to Mexico.

The native Americans who were victimized with smallpox were not Mexicans. The illegals just like to lump themselves in with true native Americans, to make their false claim that the whole of North America once belonged to them.

[Spangle]

22. Mexico use to streach more North

Texas, California and New Mexico use to be Mexican territories. Mexico ceded them to the USA after the Mexican-American War (1846-48).

Sounds kinda "native" to me.

[Ms. Clio]

27. what a truly idiotic statement

Mexicans are mestizos or mostly "pure" Indians -- Native American, because they are from the Americas, long before there was a United States or a Mexico.

[silverojo]

43. Mexicans are part European: Spanish, to be exact

If they have problems with Europeans, they should blame the Spaniards who actually invaded them.

The only thing "idiotic" is someone who reverts to name-calling because someone disagrees with them.

[MADem]

42. Tejas and California and other states as well used to BE Mexico...

[silverojo]

44. And the original 13 colonies used to be British

That doesn't give British people the right to come back, violate border laws, and claim it's "their" land, either. :rofl:

The problem with reconquistas and their enablers is that they're too busy living in the past to do something about the present--like obey laws and come here legally.

Why are all the illegal-lovers so dead-set against ONE COUNTRY'S CITIZENS immigrating here LEGALLY? Talk about racist, wanting to let people of one race enter illegally, while people of other races (Asians, blacks, etc.) must enter legally. It's unfair not only to the citizens of this country, but also unfair to those admirable individuals who come here without breaking any laws.

[MADem]

47. Well, putting your smartassness aside, I was responding to the "native" assertion

Mexicans are "native" to this nation. Like Native Americans.

So :rofl: all you want. Pull the string though, and actually check the thread before you make assumptions and extrapolations.

Fact--The people that we today call Mexicans used to inhabit the land we now call America.

Get over yourself. Your drama is tiresome.

[proud2BlibKansan]

54. Actually Texans are native to Mexico

as are those living in NM, AZ and most of southern CA. Since that land WAS Mexico's before it was ours.

[Spangle]

10. So.. when is she moving back to where she came from

And leaving the area for the Natives?

[johncoby2]

11. It happened to us also!

So we threw his ass out of the club.

[Maat]

12. What a bigot! Should have kicked her out of the meeting!

I've lived in SoCal for 2 years shy of a half-century, and had many undocumented workers as close friends. My friends and their families have contributed so much to the community.

I agree with Thom Hartmann. We don't have an illegal immigrant problem; we have an illegal EMPLOYER problem (as in Boooosh-like meglomaniacs who exploit the poor).

[proud2BlibKansan]

57. I wanted to kick her out

I wonder if she will try to come back.

She pissed me off with her first comment about poll taxes.

[silverojo]

14. She may have been rude, but not totally wrong.

Mexicans ARE bringing diseases to this country. There have been increases in many diseases that were considered to be no longer a problem, particularly in the border states. The truth is that Mexico's health care system isn't as good as ours, so their people are still suffering from diseases that we haven't had to deal with for decades. As a result, when they come here, they spread diseases to people here--just as we spread the flu to each other. Except these diseases are a lot worse than the flu, because their health system hasn't done much to combat them. Even diseases like leprosy are making a comeback in the border states--this is a serious problem.

I'm one of many, many Democrats who believe that immigration should be controlled--I welcome people who come here LEGALLY, not illegally. Our reasons for wanting secure borders are NOT racist (that's just the favorite slur the pro-illegals use, to make common sense sound like an evil thing). The reasons ARE economic, as well as security-related. No country's borders should be a sieve. No country should be getting invaded by gangs like MS-13 (we have enough gang problems, without importing them, thankyouverymuch).

Finally, it's pretty unethical to snoop at the contact information for someone who disagrees with you, then post that information on a public message board. That woman may have been the rudest person on earth--and yes, I disagree with a lot of what she said--but what you've done stoops far below her level.

[Common Sense Party]

20. Are we a sovereign nation or not?

A sovereign nation SHOULD be able to control her borders, and has EVERY right to decide who gets in, how many, when, and for how long...and who doesn't. And the Republicans have NOT been doing their job.

And it's not just the borders, per se, it's the thousands and thousands who overstay their visas--people as pasty white as me, people from Europe, from Asia, from Australia, etc.

Do we need immigrants? Of course we do. Should we streamline and speed up the process of LEGAL immigration? Absolutely. Should we just say, "The heck with it. Anybody who wants to is welcome to come here, for as long as they want."

You're right. That's not racist. That's not right or left. That's just common sense.

[Ms. Clio]

28. please provide reputable links to your vile BS

I won't hold my breath.

[silverojo]

45. Google is your friend

Why should I spoon-feed you information when you cop an attitude? Oh, and by the way, I have family members working in Southwestern hospitals where these issues are faced on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, you sit on your butt in front of a keyboard, too lazy to even check the internet find out what's really going on in the border states.

I'll give you one "respectable" link to start you off--from there, you're on your own:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/resolve?id=doi:10.1086/340620&erFrom=-5046167319193454525Guest

[proud2BlibKansan]

59. The way this works

is if YOU make a claim, you do the Googling.

[proud2BlibKansan]

58. I am on the leadership team for our DFA group

and we send emails out to everyone who comes to our meetings. So, no I wasn't being rude by "snooping" at her contact info. I was doing my job. And I doubt we will either send her a thank you email or add her to our contact list.

On edit, after reading your other responses, I won't hold my breath waiting for you to apologize to me for calling me out for looking at her contact info.

[David__77]

18. You should have immediately evicted her if she wouldn't adhere to protocol.

Disruptors go far when rules are too lax.

[Leilani]

25. It's very sad that at DU, we cannot have have an informed

intelligent discussion on Immigration & Illegal Immigration without a vocal chorus yelling "Racist."

This is a serious problem facing our country, but let's not talk about it.

Let's instead, act like Freepers & let the bullies control the debate.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

26. You haven't seen the Homeland Security poster?

The one with four Native Americans holding rifles, and the caption is:
HOMELAND SECURITY
FIGHTING TERRORISM SINCE 1492

[jobycom]

33. It's also a shame when someone defends racist attitudes by saying

that it's a shame we can't have such a discussion without someone yelling racist.

The woman described in the OP was shouting about defending our culture, keeping it pure. There's no way to interpret that except as a racist rant. The meeting the OP described had experts on the subject who were trying to have an informed, intelligent discussion, and the woman wanted none of it. She wanted to spout her emotional, uninformed cliches about our culture and our security, etc. She was a racist, and was interfering with an "informed, intelligent discussion," with nothing to add but hate and fear.

[Leilani]

38. I was not responding to the particular woman in the OP

I was responding to the same tired replies, mentioning the KKK, etc.

BTW, I choose to live in the only state in our country where there is a minority of white people.

Talk is cheap, & that's what I was referring to.

I would like, for once, to see an intelligent discussion, with all positions debated in a civil fashion, without resorting to cheap shots.

[Eurobabe]

34. I also have issues with the Dem position on immigration

and amnesty, but you can't bring this up here -- everyone calls you a racist. Doesn't matter what your reasons are for believing as you do.

Just as polarizing as the Freeps. IMHO. Those who scream the loudest about seeing things black and white, you're with us or against us -- I thought this was Conlogic 101?

I just shake my head and stay out of the fray. :crazy:

[tkmorris]

35. I have issues as well

If they are going to call you a racist then I will stand with you and let them hurl their silly epithets at me too.

[Warren DeMontague]

36. What's the "Dem position on Immigration"? Honestly, it seems neither party has a clear stand.

And none of the folks screaming at either end seem to have a terribly realistic grasp of the situation, either. On one side, you've got people seemingly arguing that the borders should be open, or anyone who wants to be a US Citizen should be one. On the other side, you've got folks operating under the delusion that some 20 million or whatever folks are realistically going to be "sent out" of the country, notwithstanding their contributions to the economy, etc.

I think answers to this issue are only gonna come from looking realistically at the situation.


And most importantly? Make no mistake- the noise about how this is ALL OF A SUDDEN A HUGE PROBLEM that MUST BE ADDRESSED RIGHT NOW.. that's coming from various right wing brain trusts that know they have shot their intellectual and philosophical wad, and are flailing around for an issue to energize Mr. and Mrs. Heartland 'Merika before 2008.

[Eurobabe]

40. Uh, that would be amnesty for about 12million people

who cut the lines and don't obey the rules?

Here's what I posted on another thread just yesterday re: why I say NO to amnesty:

We lived a similar situation. Dear hubby came to the US legally in 1993. He was on an H1B visa. Got in line. Waited, waited...paid his dues. Only after we were married in 1998 and got a lawyer did he finally get a green card. Total NIGHTMARE on Elm St. dealing with INS every couple months. We have laws in this country, and some seem to be so eager to bend the rules and break them. It's not fair to so many people. But you'll get heckled on DU for saying this.

Democratic position on this? Ask Ted Kennedy. I'm on his mailing list and I received an email from him, why just last week.

:eyes:

[proud2BlibKansan]

61. You need to study up on the laws that are very different now

White Europeans - their wait is only a few years

Chinese - they wait 20 years

Hispanic from Central America - forget about it, we don't want any more of them

The laws are VERY unfair and VERY confusing. It is just not right to say 'well I came legally, so they can too'. Not everyone CAN come legally.

[Leilani]

39. I agree!

I usually avoid these threads like the plague, but made a silly mistake tonight.

I'm just a racist from Hawaii, a place where we have the most diverse group of people, getting along really well.

:crazy:

[silverojo]

48. How many people can enter Hawaii illegally?

It's a pretty long swim from the mainland, after all. ;)

If you haven't been to a border state, you just don't get what's going on here. It's a nightmare of gangbangers and other criminals flooding through the borders, because the corrupt Mexican government doesn't want to house its own prisoners. Much cheaper to let 'em come here and become problems for law enforcement and the judicial system in America....

[silverojo]

46. So very true!

I wish your post had a "recommend" link. :)

[ebayfool]

37. A ringer?

Showing up just to disrupt, maybe?

[proud2BlibKansan]

62. Yes I think so

[Geek_Girl]

63. I think our immigration laws are broken

It should be made easier for those living and working in this country to become legitimate workers that pay taxes and are protected under labor laws as well as tighten labor laws. If this happens employers won't be able to use illegal workers as slave labor and things will balance out on their own. Slave jobs will wont exist and the influx will slow down or stop because the jobs won't be there.

[proud2BlibKansan]

65. That's exactly the point the immigration lawyer made

at our meeting.

[LaurenG]

66. Locking

This has turned into a flame fest.