I Believe The Phrase These Days Is "OOOOH, SNAP"

[filkertom]

Kaye Grogan said something completely idiotic, and The Poor Man gives her one mother of a visual smackdown.

Comments

[jonnorthwood.livejournal.com]

That was beautiful!

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

Keeping immigrants out is for their own good. After all, do we not currently groan under the evil dictatorship of Georgito Busholini, the half-chimpanzee, half-Hitler, half-Antichrist? (Someone so evil as that must have more than two halves---it's all part of his innate evil.)

Not allowing sweet, innocent foreigners in strikes me as common sense---kind of like NOT allowing one's eight-year-old son to go on a three-week, unsupervised, sleepover at Michael Jackson's ranch.

And, for the record---that statue's name is "Liberty Enlightening the World," not "Come on in, the door's wide open."

[roane.livejournal.com]

No, that's what the poem at the bottom of it says:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Oh, second snap.

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I know about the poem.

I stand by what I said.

The poem is not the name of the statue.

And if pro-immigration types do NOT want a real nasty backlash against immigrants (or at least Mexicans) I would suggest sitting on the idiots who do things like fly the Mexican flag over upside-down US flags, _right now._ The idiots who were demonstrating in LA couldn't have screwed their own cause better if they'd been paid by Pat Buchanan himself.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I believe your heart's in the right place, or somewhere close to it, but I disagree with you on immigrants (and it's not just because my dad is technically an immigrant).

The socioeconomic conditions in Mexico are appalling, and have been for decades. Sure, there are illegals who are trying to take advantage of the system -- but most of them are just getting whacked around by it as they try to find jobs and better lives. They are willing to give up their homeland to do so. And, bluntly, some of them are lied to by unscrupulous folks on both sides of the border who want to exploit them.

The biggest reason for the protest (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11442705/) was that the legislation working its way through Congress right now would make every single undocumented worker in the country -- about eleven or twelve million of them -- instantly felons. Bush's "guest worker" program isn't any better. And Bay Buchanan actually said, out loud, that it's "very realistic (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/03/27/buchanan-deport-immigrants/)" to deport eleven million people.

Those in power are trying to stomp more rights out of those who aren't. It's an old song.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Don't forgot, flying the US flag upside is a sign of distress. And God knows, what the administration is doing to this country is distressing...

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

Right, the poem is completely antithetical to the statue's meaning. That's why they put it there.

Not to put that reply under a microscope...but, um--

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Immigration reform is a damned-if you do, damned-if-you-don't situation, unfortunately.

But in my opinion, if we must be damned, I'd rather we be damned on the side of law.

Why? Because this is a nation of LAWS, not of MEN.

That was the rationale used for censuring Bush over the phone-tapping scandal, and I, for one, choose not to live by a double-standard.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Unrelated note:

"We are also expecting a special appearance by the world's only professional filk artist, Tom Smith." http://www.anthrocon.org/

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Tee hee. I was gonna hype it more as we get closer, but... I should put up a current schedule in the next day or two.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

.....
.....
.....

Tread carefully, Smith.

Tread carfully.

[sylverwolfe.livejournal.com]

*snerk* that is just TOO great. i reposted it to my flist to share the joy. very shiny, dear, thanks. :-D

[ravenclaw-eric.livejournal.com]

I don't think you really realize just how offensive that protest was to a lot of people.

As a libertarian, I'm all in favor of immigration. Most people are not libertarians, and just see a bunch of people demanding to be (as they see it) rewarded for openly breaking our laws. I wonder just how you'd feel if I got caught pulling something illegal in Mexico and complained about being punished for it? Or demanded special treatment?

Some of the people I know aren't so much in favor of deportation for illegals as outlawry...as it was during the Middle Ages. Others are in favor of deportation: "Don't we still own the Aleutian Islands?"

And I _like_ the idea of putting convicts to work picking crops. The "norms" I'd set for them would make the late Stakhanov faint dead(er) away, and ghods help the ones who didn't work hard enough or complained!

Well, uhm...

[lizard-sf.livejournal.com]

Not to put too fine a point on it, they already ARE felons. They are here illegally. Merely by being here, they are breaking the law.

I am also from an immigrant family. My parents came over here in the 1950s. I was the first person in my family born in the USA. However, my family came here legally. They obeyed the law, towed the line, paid their taxes yadda yadda, and eventually earned their citizenship. I don't ask any more of anyone else than what my own parents did. I don't consider that to be unfair, unjust, or racist.

This is not a matter of rights -- there's no right to move onto someone else's land without their permission -- and this land belongs to the citizens of the United States. I am all in favor of increasing the number of *legal* immigrants, and making it easier for hard-working, law-abiding individuals to gain citizenship, but that's far different from ignoring the problem of illegal immigration. Because the normal mechanisms of law are not available to those here illegally, they can be abused, mistreated, and underpaid. In addition to the humanitarian issues, this leads to a gross distortion of the marketplace -- why pay minimum wage if you can get someone to work for less and know he can't do anything about it? Why hire a *legal* immigrant who can seek redress for grievances if you can hire an illegal immigrant who can't?

Further, what message does it send to those who DO play by the rules if those who don't get the same benefits? Why make the effort to become a legal citizen if all you have to do is wait around for amnesty?

Lastly, when protesters fly the Mexican flag over the American one, they are saying, very clearly, "We do not WANT to become part of your country. We just want to live here." That's utterly antithetical to the ideal of immigration and assimilation which is what created America.

(And why doesn't Mexico spend more time improving its OWN economic conditions, instead of relying on the United States to take up its slack? Might it not be argued that conditions in Mexico would improve if its citizens didn't have the 'escape valve' of the United States and thus put more pressure on their own government to do something positive?)

Re: Well, uhm...

[nomaddervish.livejournal.com]

I agree entirely with all you've said, save for the implication that legal immigrants are safe from mistreatment. I work in computers and have heard plenty of stories about companies sponsoring foreign workers for H1-B visas and then driving them hard while paying them below the rates that a comparable American worker would receive because they know that the H1-B worker can't quit or (easily) change jobs without being deported. Legal immigrants are certainly much safer from abuse, but can still be rather vulnerable.

[trdsf.livejournal.com]

I <3 your icon to pieces.

Re: Well, uhm...

[skemono.livejournal.com]

Lastly, when protesters fly the Mexican flag over the American one, they are saying, very clearly, "We do not WANT to become part of your country. We just want to live here." That's utterly antithetical to the ideal of immigration and assimilation which is what created America.

Y'mean like those bastions of fifth-columners in the St. Patrick's Day parades?