Peter Boyles can hype his ratings by having listeners turn in illegal immigrants

21 thoughts on “Peter Boyles can hype his ratings by having listeners turn in illegal immigrants”

1. That’s the question, I think.

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2. you can’t turn in illegal immigrants: No one will respond. For the most part, I’m good with that. I’m all for the free-flow of labor in response to demand (not to mention allowing the less-fortunate as much opportunity as possible to become more-fortunate). But the inconsistency of our immigration policy bugs me: A poor grandmother in Mexico who wants to see her grandchild has to pay $40 bucks, non-refundable, for a maybe-visa, make a couple of expensive bus trips to the nearest American consulate, and then travel to the border to be subjected to the caprice of the border guards (who, noticing that she is nervous, due in reality to the fact that she has hardly ever left her little village before, turn her away three times that she repeated this scenario). By the way, I am talking about a real person, and a real series of events here.

   Meanwhile, an illegal immigrant who made it across the border, no matter how undesirable a person he may be (and most are honest and hard-working, just to be clear), won’t be deported no matter how much you complain to the police and the department of immigration.

   When my Mexican wife and I moved to the U.S. from Mexico, I called the American consulate a few months before the planned move to arrange her visa in preparation for legal residency. They told me that it was too late to arrange it in time, and that we should lie at the border, telling the border guard that we were only planning a brief visit, and do the paperwork once we were in the country! Now, how dumb is that?!

   After a few months here, trying to arrange permission for my wife to visit her family in Mexico, we did “early parole” paperwork, and were told that when she presents it upon her return, they may or may not let her back in the country!

   There is only one word to describe our current immigration policy: Arbitrary. I like liberal. I like inviting. I like open-door. But I really, really don’t like arbitrary!!!

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   1. But your wife is trying to get in legally. You waited to long to start the paperwork. That’s not the government’s problem, that’s yours.

      That the government workers told you to lie is typical and part of the problem. In Mexico, lying and cheating are needed to survive, I understand. (Correct?) And now it permeates our consulates. What does that tell you about the kind of people sneaking across our borders illegally? They come taught to cheat, and they bring that culture with them. So we wonder why we have more and more corruption in this country?  Think about it.

      Illegal immigrants probably won’t be turned in by neighbors. I’ve never done it and probably wouldn’t. Like you say, it’s not worth the bother to me, and there always is the fear of retaliation.

      But if, as reported, attempts to cross the border are down 30% to 50% because of increased enforcements resulting from Tom Tancredo’s leadership, we’re making progress. And if increased enforcement of labor laws in this country with some key, widely publicized raids on employers, the number of jobs available for the illegals will shrink dramatically.

      That’s happening in Summit County, according to the Summit Daily, and that’s good. When there are no jobs, more illegals will go home and not return until they can do so legally.

      If the government comes up with new immigration laws and rules that make it easier for people to come here as guest workers, that’s fine. But until the rules are changed, everyone should live by today’s laws, including the illegals and their law-breaking employers.

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      1. make them a reasonable reflection of our values and interests, and then enforce them. What is in the interests of both Mexicans and Estadounidenses is a guest worker program: Most Mexicans want to come up, make some money, and go back home. That really suits everybody’s needs.

         But are you okay with fleecing a poor old woman (for whom the $200 or so total costs each time she tried to come up to visit her daughter and meet her grandson was truly a fortune she could ill-afford)? That REALLY bugs me!!!

         And are you okay with arbitrary decisions ruling the day, on a daily basis? That, truly, is the opposite of “rule of law.”

         What I think most Americans grossly underestimate is the importance, to us, of our reputation abroad. We are doing many things, pursuing many policies, acting in ways which breed enormous contempt, distrust, and concern among allies and enemies alike, around the world. That is a huge liability that HAS come home to roost, and will continue to do so, in larger and more horrible ways, as time passes. We will become “fortress America,” waging war against the world, defending our borders, threatening our enemies, freaking out our allies, until we are truly the pariahs of the world community. It’s not only bad for the world, it is very, very bad for us as well!

         There’s another way of looking at it: America, not uniquely, became a rich and powerful nation at least in part by exploiting and conquering others. One can easily argue that it was a large part of our history: The very soil on which we stand is gained by a very aggressive, dishonest, and ugly conquest (e.g., giving small pox infected blankets as gifts to Indian leaders). Slavery, the conquest and near extermination of the indigenous population, and, to a lesser extent, a land-grab which deprived Mexico of some very valuable real estate (I’m less concerned about that, since that was a game between modern nation-states, on similar ethical footing). In my opinion, we have moral debt to humanity, one which we have not come close to paying.

         Even to the extent that it is not in our own best interest to have a liberal immigration policy, it is the right thing to do. If we want to be leaders in the world, leading by the example of being a compassionate, enlightened, progressive people, then one major prerequisite is that we actually act like a compassionate, enlightened, progressive people! In the absence of that, we are just a new Rome, sending our legions to intimidate and conquer all who oppose us. Just as most of the rest of the world believes.

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         1. The rich and wealthy are always envied, despised, hated and warred against by the not so wealthy who can no right in the eyes of the less fortunate.

            America is the envy and hated world power, and no matter what we do, we’ll be hated for it. Should we do our best to befriend our neighbors and the world?

            Of course, but not at the expense of our national security, integrity or economic well being. We do not serve the world or ourselves by bowing to the whims of our enemies, and Mexico is our enemy.

            Mexico is our enemy because the crooks running the country and their people have no respect for our borders, laws or values, and they are only interested in lining their pockets at our expense. They even send uniformed troops into our country and murder our agents while protecting Mexicans who commit crimes in the U.S before running for cover in Mexico.

            The countries that should be worrying about alienating their neighbors are Mexico and others that are driving their poor and uneducated across our borders, encouraging the to violate our laws and values and to send money orders home.

            Let not America worry about its reputation, let the world worry about America.

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            1. The rich and wealthy are always envied, despised, hated and warred against by the not so wealthy, and wealthy America can no right in the eyes of the less fortunate.

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            2. The rich and wealthy are always envied, despised, hated and warred against by the not so wealthy.

               America is the envied and hated world power. No matter what we do, we’ll be hated for it. Sixty years of pouring money down the corrupt rat holes of the world have taught us that. An aren’t the Europeans and South Koreans so grateful for our Marshall Plan and military protection?

               Should we do our best to befriend our neighbors and the world?

               Of course, but not at the expense of our national security, integrity or economic well being. We do not serve the world or ourselves by bowing to the whims of our enemies, and Mexico is our enemy.

               Mexico is our enemy because the crooks running the country and their people have no respect for our borders, laws or values. They are only interested in lining their pockets at our expense. The Mexican army even sends uniformed troops into our country. Mexicans murder our agents while protecting Mexicans who commit crimes in the U.S before running for cover in Mexico.

               The countries that should be worrying about alienating their neighbors are Mexico and others that are driving their poor and uneducated across our borders, encouraging them to violate our laws and values and to send money orders home.

               Fear breeds respect, and if America shows self-respect, the world will fear us even more.

               Let not America worry about its reputation. Let the world worry about America.

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            3. America isn’t hated abroad because we’re a wealthy democracy. If people hated America for that reason we’d be in deep trouble because we’re just a small fraction of earth’s population.

               America is hated abroad because we are a democracy which upholds dictatorships who are friendly to our interests. We’re hated because we go to war saying it’s for idealistic purposes (e.g. war on terror) when in fact we’re pursuing economic benefit (the object of all wars, regardless of the rhetoric used by the aggressors). We’d probably just be feared and envied if we were honest about why we pursue the foreign policy we do, instead of mouthing high-minded ideals while employing torture and unlawful detention abroad. If we aren’t the ones doing the torture and summary execution, we’re very visibly supporting the unpopular dictators who are.

               In short, the world hates America because our government is comprised of hypocrites. That by extension indicts us because we put them in power and do not demand that they uphold the ideals that make us great everywhere.

               Now, back to the discussion about illegal immigration…

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               1. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy any of it.

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                  1. Your disbelief doesn’t make it untrue.

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                     1. Time to get real.

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                        1. then you ought to be willing to answer my post on a point by point basis. Absent that, I’ll dismiss this as another example of you bending reality to fit your orthodoxy.

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            4. and had even thought about mentioning it in my original post. And you’re right that no amount of good will and good works can ever erase that element. But that is just one element among many, and not, I think, the predominant one at this point. The rich and powerful are hated less when they are most noble, and most when they are least responsible. On the spectrum of how hated or loved we might be in the world, we are doing a lousy job of earning love, and a marvelous job of earning hatred. Our actions, our choices, do have an effect.

               And it is not just, “Oh, gee, I don’t want anyone to hate me….” Power is a strange thing: The more it is based on the consent of those over whom it is exercised, the longer it persists, to more positive effect. That’s why I argued elsewhere that some modern concessions to labor were initiated by management, not by labor: Because management has to some extent learned that satisfied workers are productive workers.

               Beyond that, I’m a humanist first: Nationalities are a reality that I won’t deny, and can’t ignore in practical terms, but they are by no means an ideal I defend. It is merely modern tribalism, and while we benefit now, “What’s good for General Motors is good for America, and what’s good for America is good for General Motors.” The part and the whole; myself and my family or community; America and the world; the logic remains the same.

               So I have no interest in defending American interests over and above the interests of global humanity, and believe that, in the long run, the interests of global humanity are our interest. I’m sick of the “we v. “them” mentality that everyone seems to take for granted as not just natural, but even noble. Somehow, waving a flag that announces my preference for defending the advantages of the most advantaged nation on Earth, against the interests of people world-wide, many of whom make our poor look rich by comparison, seems not at all noble in the synoptic view of the world.

               And to add to our folly, we claim the right to exercise our power in our own interest without limit, while at the same time deluding ourselves with a national halucination of global benevolence! It really is enough to make any disinterested observer, perhaps an extraterrestrial, shake its heads in disgust.

               Now, don’t get me wrong: I don’t think that America is particularly evil. When I hear that tired old song from friends and family around the world, I argue that America acts the way nation-states act, the difference being a matter of degree and largely a function of its ability to successfully impose its will in the international jungle of sovereign nations. I even argue that, if all nations were to be rated on some benevolence-malevolence scale, I think that America would fare fairly well (though would by no means be benevolence winner).

               But, to both sides, those many abroad who think that America is particularly evil, and those many here who think that America is particularly good, the same simple message holds: America is less exceptional than either side believes. It is big, powerful nation acting in an international arena in a very undemocratic way (something very typical of powerful democracies and republics throughout history: e.g., Athens, Rome, Great Britain). It doesn’t take a truckload of imagination to realize that, were the roles reversed, we would be spitting venom over any other nation treating us the way we treat our neighbors near and far: We do not ask permission before “saving” nations by killing tens of thousands of their citizens, destroying their infrastructure, eliminating all social controls and igniting a bloody and destructive explosion of chaos, on the basis of a false (perhaps even falsified) assumption that they posed a dire, imminent threat to us, nd yet have the gall to claim that we are acting benevolently! Or even, for that matter, justfiably.

               If we want to be “Nazis” conquering in the name of the 21st century parallel of “lebensraum,” then let’s look ourselves in the mirror and admit it. Years ago Risk boards changed their language from “conquer” to “liberate,” but the game remain exactly the same.

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               1. I’m a nationalist and would like to see peace and civility around the world, but the dictators who run the UN and demonize the U.S. prefer to use the U.S. as a foil to enhance their power.

                  It’s the old political trick of rallying your people to hate America, thereby taking their minds off their misery and reducing their interest in toppling you.

                  What’s amazing is that Americans get caught up in the hate America campaigns of our enemies in the name of humanism and world democracy.

                  Makes no sense to me to hate America, which would be very happy to bring all of our troops home if international politics allowed us to do that.

                  But some depressed people have nothing better to do than hate their country and themselves. So sad.

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                  1. are not normally numbered among our enemies, and yet this trick of our enemies you refer to (with some justification) seems to be common in all of these countries. In the United Kingdom, which is arguably our stauchest ally in the world, public disapproval of American foreign policy is around 70%.

                     Even as an American who carefully places analysis above a lifetime of political indoctrination, I can feel within me the emotional resistance to recognizing the reality of our role in the world. And being critical, even of one’s own country, has nothing to do with hatred: It is all about intellectual honesty. I don’t hate anyone, neither the people of this country nor the people of any other. Nor do I see any natural reason to believe that the people of this country are somehow more entitled to my allegiance than are the people of any other. What did the child born in a mud-hut in Bengal do to deserve my concern less than the wheat farmer in Iowa? I just can’t see the logic of it.

                     And yes, devolving power, creating democracy, always confronts the kind of problem you cited. Our own country was born in a compromise in which the northern states agreed to let slave-owning states participate in the Union represented only by a highly oppressive ruling class. If compromising with dictators is a deal-breaker, then this country should never have been born.

                     The truth is that we are much less self-hating than self-satisfied. We spout high-minded values, only to ignore them in our dealings with the world whenever they are inconvenient. We appear to be, and in fact are, ham-fisted hypocrits in foreign affairs. We don’t compromise with dictators to promote some degree of world federation, but we do compromise with them to promote their ignoring their own population’s will to act as our agents. No matter how many times you hide all of this under the rhetoric of “self-hating americans,” and the political ploys of other world leaders, the facts remain the same.

                     We grow up, in fact, in an environment far more nationalistic and patriotic than that of most (perhaps any) other developed nation. We pledge allegiance to the flag before we even know the meaning of the words. We sing stirring patriot songs, and watch fireworks commemorating the heroic feat of throwing off the yoke of our brutal oppressors, Great Britain (well, that’s the version that keeps us patriotic, anyway). All countries have elements of this, but we take it to a degree that most others, witnessing it, shake their heads and roll their eyes.

                     International politics did not demand our invasion of Iraq: In fact, international opinion, both popular and political, was steadfastly against it. So were the analyses of some of our own most intelligent and honest officials. It did not serve a positive purpose: The vaunted presence of Al-Qaeda there is a direct result of the power vacuum our invasion created. No offense, but I do not believe that it follows from an honest analysis that we are there because of some demand imposed on us by the world. We are there because an administration with an ideology and a mandate (after 9/11) decided to take advantage of the opportunity to invade a country whose regime they wanted to get rid of. And it turned out to be a fiasco.

                     And my opinions on the matter have nothing to do with depression: I spend my free time playing hide-and-seek with my daughter in shared fits of laughter, as a teacher use ample humor and playfullness in the class, and in general look around me everyday admiring and enjoying the wonders of this world. I’m no one’s dupe, and don’t buy into anything anyone insists is the truth without subjecting it to the most painstaking scrutiny. My ideology is not consistently anything: I come to the conclusions that logic, evidence, and compassion demand, to the best of my ability. You’re a smart and knowledgable contributer to this list: You have no need to stoop to such cheap shots. Argue with logic and evidence, or you accomplish nothing but to leave the (mistaken) impression that you have no logic and evidence on your side to argue with.

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                     1. I won’t repeat them and appeciate your thoughtful responses.

                        I”m sure we’ll debate again.

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3. Isn’t this how things worked in Germany in the 1930’s?

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   1. Thke Mexicans love to demonize Americans, taking their voters’ minds off the corruption and monopolies that rule Mexico.

      If you’re saying I’m demonizing Mexicans like the Nazis demonized the Jews, you’re not thinking clearly.

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      1. we should ask ourselves a simple question: Why do the differences exist, and what do they mean?

         We all know, or should know, that while there is some genetic variation among individual humans (obviously), there is no statistically significant variation among large groups of humans: In terms of innate qualities, race and nationality don’t exist. They are purely social constructs (in the case of race, highly visible variation being mistaken for more variation).

         So, all differences among large groups of human beings are due to the interaction of different circumstances over long periods of time with an unchanging and invariable human nature.

         But changing circumstances breed changing cultures: Western Europeans were blowing each other to bits just yesterday (historically speaking), but are largely pacifistic now. And Japan was an expanding empire 65 years ago, and is pacifistic now. While your depiction of Mexican culture and values is exaggerated and overgeneralized (there are many, many honest, caring, generous Mexicans, and characterizing all the people of one country negatively, en masse, is, by definition, bigotry. The only time it isn’t bigotry is when you are criticising a group defined by its values or beliefs specifically for those values or beliefs), whatever differences do exist are not profound and immutable, but a product of circumstances. Change the circumstances, and you change the characteristics.

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         1. Mexicans know how to deal with corrupt officials. Bribe them.

            That’s not bigotry, that’s fact.

            To say otherwise shows denial.

            And if you think people stop to think, “They’re human just like me,” you’re ignoring the realities of human behaviors and perceptions.

            Physically, we’re the same.

            Culturally, we’re quite different, depending on where we are raised, our religions, ethnic groups, etc.

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