LA prelate ‘deeply concerned’ about Trump on immigration

[Ridgerunner]

There is some subtlety in all this. I do sympathize with the position that groups can use a word that when said by outsiders is offensive. However in this case the ‘n word’ is supposedly so offensive it shouldn’t be used by anyone. It certainly shouldn’t be found liberally used in popular music.

Actually, the “N” word can be a term of endearment or comeraderie, but only if both the speaker and the hearer are black. Among them, it’s sort of like “dude” among young people. It can be derogatory or not, depending on the relationship and the context.

I actually received a “license” to say the “N” word by a black motorcycle gang in St. Louis, years ago. Kind of a long story, but I did one of them a favor, and while drinking with them, I complained that while they use it constantly in their conversations, they would cut my throat if I said it. It was hard to never say it in a conversation in which it’s every other word from them, especially if we were drinking. They explained that among them, it’s not offensive, but from a white person it is because we mean it differently. I asked if they would still get angry if I meant it the same way they did. After consideration, they said that would be okay in that event. I was still reticent about saying it though.

That’s an absolutely true story. Radioactivity of the “N” word is strictly among whites. Blacks say it all the time.

 

[prolifeteenager]

Without having been able to read the whole thread (since it is quite long), from what I have read, there seems to be a grave misunderstandings of the current immigration system. First, there are more ways immigrants become illegal than crossing the border. Some do overstay their visas (intentionally or accidentally) but some come with their parents who are guaranteed green cards because of work and since the system is broken and get stalled for years at a time, the child has already aged out of their ability to get their green card via their parent. So basically their whole family has a green card but them by no fault of their own.
It is heart breaking to move to a country your parents decided to come to, only to be told you can’t live here because the government stopped processing applications for 5 years and your application went no where. As it is the current system is backlogged 10 years. So if someone is getting their green card it is because they have waited 10 years and payed thousands of dollars in fees! Though other countries have a lottery system and get free green cards just because.

The truth is, we need reform. It shouldn’t take a person 10 years and thousands of dollars to become legal. Many MANY people don’t want to break the law. But they have no life where they come from. They would go back to sleeping on dirt floors. Jesus doesn’t want us to turn people away. Jesus doesn’t want what is going on right now.

Yes, there is a drug problem in Mexico, but that is just half of the story. There are too many people who are good people, that are here just because they are trying to SURVIVE. We need to get off of our privileged pedestals and realize the truth of the matter. America is a country for migrants. It is a shame if we close our doors. We as catholic of all people should be the first to extend a merciful plea of support for those who are less privileged than us.

Right now we call ourselves pro life, but an unborn baby is in the same situation as a migrant. It’s not considered a citizen so people think they can get rid of them if they are a burden. This is human life we’re talking about. Besides the eucharist its the most sacred thing on earth!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Without having been able to read the whole thread (since it is quite long), from what I have read, there seems to be a grave misunderstandings of the current immigration system. First, there are more ways immigrants become illegal than crossing the border. Some do overstay their visas (intentionally or accidentally) but some come with their parents who are guaranteed green cards because of work and since the system is broken and get stalled for years at a time, the child has already aged out of their ability to get their green card via their parent. So basically their whole family has a green card but them by no fault of their own.
It is heart breaking to move to a country your parents decided to come to, only to be told you can’t live here because the government stopped processing applications for 5 years and your application went no where. As it is the current system is backlogged 10 years. So if someone is getting their green card it is because they have waited 10 years and payed thousands of dollars in fees! Though other countries have a lottery system and get free green cards just because.

The truth is, we need reform. It shouldn’t take a person 10 years and thousands of dollars to become legal. Many MANY people don’t want to break the law. But they have no life where they come from. They would go back to sleeping on dirt floors. Jesus doesn’t want us to turn people away. Jesus doesn’t want what is going on right now.

Yes, there is a drug problem in Mexico, but that is just half of the story. There are too many people who are good people, that are here just because they are trying to SURVIVE. We need to get off of our privileged pedestals and realize the truth of the matter. America is a country for migrants. It is a shame if we close our doors. We as catholic of all people should be the first to extend a merciful plea of support for those who are less privileged than us.

Right now we call ourselves pro life, but an unborn baby is in the same situation as a migrant. It’s not considered a citizen so people think they can get rid of them if they are a burden. This is human life we’re talking about. Besides the eucharist its the most sacred thing on earth!

The very preference for admitting relatives of recent arrivals is a form of discrimination all its own. Probably half the population of Macedonia or Romania would come here if they could. But without relatives here, they’re a long way back in the line. Preferential treatment of relatives of recent immigrants virtually guarantees cultural adaptation problems due to concentrations of non-adaptation, which, themselves, cause reluctance on the part of Americans to accept immigration as freely as they might.

Edward Kennedy created the family preference in order to please the Irish in his constituency, thinking it would ease the inflow of Irish. Probably it did, but now Irish immigration is pretty small. Of all the world’s people, perhaps Irish were the most easily assimilated at the time. But now, we’re creating “ghettos” of people who do not assimilate because of the family preference and just general lack of enforcement.

I’ll agree the system needs reform, but it’s going to be devilishly hard to do. Just saying we should welcome immigrants doesn’t give us any practical solutions to the problems immigration can present, and that’s one of the reasons why it never gets reformed. Those businesses who want cheap labor are at odds with those who don’t want to subsidize it through welfare programs.

I’ll add that while some who come here are doing so in order to “survive”, for the most part it’s not really true. From south of the border, particularly Mexico which has the world’s 13th highest GDP/capita, it’s often a matter of a very favorable rate of exchange between the dollar and the currency of the country of origin. If one wants to talk about actual “survival” as the criteria, Haiti and just about anywhere in the Balkans would be far ahead in preference.

 

[gracepoole]

You were using relativity to justify you being uncharitable.

If you’re not going to read and respond to what I said, you certainly don’t have the right to continually call me uncharitable. Respectfully, knock it off.

 

[philipl]

Is it in your power to give liberty, freedom, and accountability to these people? Is it in your power to give them cheap energy? Or are these just things we can wish for them, all the while** not** doing what is clearly in our power to do for them.

Its not in my power to help any of them. It’s in their power

 

[gracepoole]

Its not in my power to help any of them. It’s in their power

Should the man in the Parable of the Good Samaritan have been assumed to be in a position of power to help himself?

 

[Convert_in_99]

Without having been able to read the whole thread (since it is quite long), from what I have read, there seems to be a grave misunderstandings of the current immigration system. First, there are more ways immigrants become illegal than crossing the border. Some do overstay their visas (intentionally or accidentally) but some come with their parents who are guaranteed green cards because of work and since the system is broken and get stalled for years at a time, the child has already aged out of their ability to get their green card via their parent. So basically their whole family has a green card but them by no fault of their own.
It is heart breaking to move to a country your parents decided to come to, only to be told you can’t live here because the government stopped processing applications for 5 years and your application went no where. As it is the current system is backlogged 10 years. So if someone is getting their green card it is because they have waited 10 years and payed thousands of dollars in fees! Though other countries have a lottery system and get free green cards just because.

The truth is, we need reform. It shouldn’t take a person 10 years and thousands of dollars to become legal. Many MANY people don’t want to break the law. But they have no life where they come from. They would go back to sleeping on dirt floors. Jesus doesn’t want us to turn people away. Jesus doesn’t want what is going on right now.

Yes, there is a drug problem in Mexico, but that is just half of the story. There are too many people who are good people, that are here just because they are trying to SURVIVE. We need to get off of our privileged pedestals and realize the truth of the matter. America is a country for migrants. It is a shame if we close our doors. We as catholic of all people should be the first to extend a merciful plea of support for those who are less privileged than us.

Right now we call ourselves pro life, but an unborn baby is in the same situation as a migrant. It’s not considered a citizen so people think they can get rid of them if they are a burden. This is human life we’re talking about. Besides the eucharist its the most sacred thing on earth!

This is excellent!

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Its not in my power to help any of them. It’s in their power

It certainly is in your power to help them. Just allow them to live here. Instead of saying “It’s not in my power…”, what you should have said is “I don’t want to…”.

 

[Convert_in_99]

It certainly is in your power to help them. Just allow them to live here. Instead of saying “It’s not in my power…”, what you should have said is “I don’t want to…”.

This.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It certainly is in your power to help them. Just allow them to live here. Instead of saying “It’s not in my power…”, what you should have said is “I don’t want to…”.

Let’s create a subset to this.

Through personal experience, I have found that it can be incomparably less expensive to massively improve some person’s life in his own country than it would be to bring him here and put him into the welfare system. Depends on the country, of course, but a very modest amount of money can provide a decent (not lavish, but adequate for the country) home, medical care and food in, say, the Domincan Republic. In Haiti I think it’s less expensive still, but I haven’t gotten around to seeing about Haiti. Bringing such a person to the U.S. and putting him on welfare would not only cost immensely more, it would take him from the middle of his own society, resource-wise and socially, to the bottom of ours.

Immigration of all comers is not necessarily the answer to everything. It would be for some, but we also have to ask ourselves if we aren’t being just a bit elitist to think simply being in the U.S., perhaps working at a poultry plant in the U.S. and living in a house with ten other guys is necessarily a better life than having a few acres of banana-growing land in Guatemala. I know a guy who is doing exactly the former in order to finance the latter. He sees his family once/year and works two shifts, and can’t even speak Spanish like the other guys in the house, but a Mayan dialect. I sometimes wonder whether just financing the purchase of agricultural land in some of these folks’ home countries wouldn’t be a better solution.

A slight variation. I know a guy here who was a successful attorney. One day he decided to be a high-end chocolatier. He quit the law business and established a factory here to make gourmet chocolates. He goes to tropical third world countries and personally contracts with small farmers to upgrade and buy their beans. He makes all kinds of blends here and sells the chocolate as “specialty” and “ethical” chocolates. He does very well. He studied all the various kinds of beans, blends, locations and methods of making expensive “gourmet” chocolates and marketing them to people here who are happy to buy them.

The farmers he contracts with live well by the standards of their own countries because he pays them a truly fair price and teaches them how to grow the right beans for the high end.

Is there really some good reason why those farmers need to leave their own countries and work as roofers in the U.S. when their lives in their own countries, while modest in terms of consumer goods, are nevertheless adequate and dignified? Click into the site below and see what you think.

askinosie.com/

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Let’s create a subset to this.

Through personal experience, I have found that it can be incomparably less expensive to massively improve some person’s life in his own country than it would be to bring him here and put him into the welfare system. Depends on the country, of course, but a very modest amount of money can provide a decent (not lavish, but adequate for the country) home, medical care and food in, say, the Domincan Republic. In Haiti I think it’s less expensive still, but I haven’t gotten around to seeing about Haiti. Bringing such a person to the U.S. and putting him on welfare would not only cost immensely more, it would take him from the middle of his own society, resource-wise and socially, to the bottom of ours.

Immigration of all comers is not necessarily the answer to everything. It would be for some, but we also have to ask ourselves if we aren’t being just a bit elitist to think simply being in the U.S., perhaps working at a poultry plant in the U.S. and living in a house with ten other guys is necessarily a better life than having a few acres of banana-growing land in Guatemala. I know a guy who is doing exactly the former in order to finance the latter. He sees his family once/year and works two shifts, and can’t even speak Spanish like the other guys in the house, but a Mayan dialect. I sometimes wonder whether just financing the purchase of agricultural land in some of these folks’ home countries wouldn’t be a better solution.

A slight variation. I know a guy here who was a successful attorney. One day he decided to be a high-end chocolatier. He quit the law business and established a factory here to make gourmet chocolates. He goes to tropical third world countries and personally contracts with small farmers to upgrade and buy their beans. He makes all kinds of blends here and sells the chocolate as “specialty” and “ethical” chocolates. He does very well. He studied all the various kinds of beans, blends, locations and methods of making expensive “gourmet” chocolates and marketing them to people here who are happy to buy them.

The farmers he contracts with live well by the standards of their own countries because he pays them a truly fair price and teaches them how to grow the right beans for the high end.

Is there really some good reason why those farmers need to leave their own countries and work as roofers in the U.S. when their lives in their own countries, while modest in terms of consumer goods, are nevertheless adequate and dignified? Click into the site below and see what you think.

askinosie.com/

Yes, if someone takes action like this, they can do great good. If life is improved in the other countries, that will help people much more cost-effectively than bringing them to this country.

However, there is not nearly enough of that action taken. That is why I asked philipl:
*
Is it in your power to give liberty, freedom, and accountability to these people? Is it in your power to give them cheap energy? Or are these just things we can wish for them, all the while not doing what is clearly in our power to do for them. *
If the debate switched from immigration to foreign aid, the same people that object to immigration also object to foreign aid. Just for once I would like to see someone opposed to immigration say “…but I would be in favor of increasing foreign aid to the countries where these people come from.”

 

[philipl]

It certainly is in your power to help them. Just allow them to live here. Instead of saying “It’s not in my power…”, what you should have said is “I don’t want to…”.

Here is where liberal are wrong. I am not helping them by allowing them to live here. I am hurting them instead plus I hurt all those that live here already.

 

[pnewton]

. I’m not lazy and I’m certainly not rude for calling an invader an illegal.

I did not call you lazy. However, if you do not think using a derogatory word for some one (which I alone have documented the definition as a noun) is rude, then I will say calling them an invader is equally rude. I will not risk saying the adjective, but what is* your *characterization of name-calling? The fact that it is considered derogatory in any circles should give us pause when using a name. I have heard the same argument justify almost every insulting name. Their status does not justify their de-humanization.

 

[pnewton]

Not interested pNewton.

‘Illegal’ is not derogatory in the connext discussed. Don’t care in the slightest what the politically correct Oxford dictionary says.

The same argument was used to keep the “n” word in use for so long.

If this is such a non-issue, then why continue to make a point by using a term some consider insulting. More to the point, can anyone here show one place where the Church or any of the Church leaders use this term? Doesn’t the desire for holiness dictate we should seek the moral high ground?

 

[pnewton]

Well I’m not dumb and i don’t accept this new replacement religion, that’s for sure.

Catholicism is older than any of us here.

 

[pnewton]

It is really not that hard. Jesus said a lot of things that offended people.

He never said anything offensive about who people were. He never said anything offensive about the poor and needy, the down and out. The only people he spoke harshly against were those that were in power and those that oppressed the poor and needy.

 

[pnewton]

Without having been able to read the whole thread (since it is quite long), from what I have read, there seems to be a grave misunderstandings of the current immigration system. First, there are more ways immigrants become illegal than crossing the border. Some do overstay their visas (intentionally or accidentally) but some come with their parents who are guaranteed green cards because of work and since the system is broken and get stalled for years at a time, the child has already aged out of their ability to get their green card via their parent. So basically their whole family has a green card but them by no fault of their own.

Our current immigration system is very anti-family. Most Christians consider the family good and would view anything that worked to harm families, except when it comes to immigration. I do not know if it is language, the ethnicity or what that hardens so many hearts.

AB Gomez is just one in a long line of Catholic leaders that have tried to open the hearts of Christians to see these people as Christ sees them.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes, if someone takes action like this, they can do great good. If life is improved in the other countries, that will help people much more cost-effectively than bringing them to this country.

However, there is not nearly enough of that action taken. That is why I asked philipl:
*
Is it in your power to give liberty, freedom, and accountability to these people? Is it in your power to give them cheap energy? Or are these just things we can wish for them, all the while not doing what is clearly in our power to do for them. *
If the debate switched from immigration to foreign aid, the same people that object to immigration also object to foreign aid. Just for once I would like to see someone opposed to immigration say “…but I would be in favor of increasing foreign aid to the countries where these people come from.”

But what foreign aid is given, to whom, and for what purpose? For some, foreign aid has a bad name because, as with Egypt or Israel, it’s all, or nearly all, arms. For some, it has a bad name because it often means bribing dictators with money that never reaches the people. For some, (sadly) it means trying to limit the numbers in some country through contraception and abortion. I’m not saying all foreign aid is bad, but I’m not truly persuaded it does what it ought to do except in some few cases.

Now, I could be really wrong about this, but let’s say some Ecuadorian farmer has a contract with somebody like Askinosie. And let’s say the farmer needs some money to buy more land, plant more cocoa, maybe buy a Gator to haul stuff in. And let’s say the government of the U.S. would guarantee loans at non-usurious rates made by American banks, based on the Askinosie contract. There wouldn’t even need to be exchange rate problems because perhaps there could be an assignment of payments by Askinosie to the bank, in dollars.

I’m no economic expert, but it is my impression that in many parts of the world capitalization is a tremendous problem for anybody but a handful of elites. I’m not saying all, or even the major part of immigration to this country is due to capitalization problems in other parts of the world, but it’s manifestly true in a lot of cases. That’s what the Mayan who lives in the house with ten guys is doing. He’s here to capitalize a farming operation in Guatemala, period. This country is alien to him. Even his own house-mates are alien to him. He isn’t with his family. He makes no effort to bring them here. He just works in order to capitalize a farm in Guatemala. I know a Mexican father and son who work here to capitalize a peach orchard near Mexico City. They alternate spending half a year working here and half a year working there. I knew a Mexican who worked here for the sole purpose of financing a shop in some small town in Mexico. I guess he earned enough money to do it, because he went back.

There are a lot of reasons why the U.S. is relatively rich and a lot of the world is relatively poor. But among the former are that money and property are protected here, and foreign money has always been welcomed. Notwithstanding the American Revolution, virtually all American railroads were built with British money. Why? Because the Brits knew if they invested the money, they would reap the rewards without question or doubt. A good part of American industrialization was paid for with foreign money. The Brits are still owners of more American assets than citizens and companies of all other foreigners combined. And they still invest here, because it’s safe to do it.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Do you know how farmers in my part of the world can own a million dollars worth of poultry facilities without owning more than ten acres? It’s because the huge loans it takes to do it are “kissed” by the integrators (poultry companies) The integrators guarantee payment to the banks, taking the payments directly out of the money due to the farmers for producing a flock. There’s no danger of some other creditor grabbing the money, or the farmer gambling it on some foolish enterprise or losing it in a divorce or to some highbinder. Eventually, the farmers own the whole thing, and can make a lot of money. It takes several years of very hard work and a lot of learning to do it. But they do.

Now, with Askinosie, I don’t know how he ensures that the farmers he works with are able to capitalize themselves. Maybe he does the same thing the integrators do. As near as I can tell, he does to some degree. But I have never asked him. Perhaps I should.

But it seems to me there’s plenty of capital in the world and a lot of people who need it. The question is how to get it to the one in need while simultaneously making the lender safe?

Maybe the new administration will work it out and care enough to try. Hope springs eternal.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Here is where liberal are wrong. I am not helping them by allowing them to live here…

Do you really think life in the US is more violent and dangerous than life in Allepo? I mean, seriously?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Leaf: I was worried about running out of room in that last post. But I wanted to add this.

It is extremely difficult for any person to truly self-finance any enterprise. Economic value of one’s work tends to level to whatever the service becomes worth in a competitive environment. The best plumber, for example, tends to have to adjust his pricing to that of the less talented plumber. Yes, there are exceptions; the silicon valley entrepreneurs and all that. But for the most part, capitalization through earnings is really difficult. As my old (now deceased) business partner used to put it “You can’t accumulate wealth by working for it.” I’m not saying he was 100% right, but he mostly was.

I have not done too badly in my life, financially. But every bit of my actual “wealth” has come as the result of borrowing money to finance something I figured would pay a bit better (or a lot better) than the debt service required. I never, ever borrow for consumption other than my house, which I consider more a consumer good than an investment. I once read that there is no real correlation between earnings and wealth accumulation. It’s entirely possible for a guy making, say, $60,000 to end up with more than a guy making $500,000. First of all, the latter usually spends it up and then some. So does the former, most of the time. But if either spent slightly less than his net earnings, he would accumulate wealth over time. But either can accelerate that process by borrowing, so long as he is careful to keep the debt service within what the investment (plus perhaps his excess earnings) pays.

There again, that’s why the integrators (and not just in poultry, though that’s possibly the most efficient of all) have facilitated huge wealth accumulation for some farmers.

So, who is going to loan that Guatemalan money to buy banana-growing land in Guatemala, or is he going to have to continue sharing rent with ten guys and eating “beanie/weenie” twice a day trying to get it together? (Lots of legals and illegals eat what they call “beanie/weenie”. It’s refried beans, cut hot dogs and eggs, mixed together and cooked in a hurry…all of the ingredients being filling and cheap) It will never happen unless someone loans him the money and somebody else “kisses the paper”.

Is importing a lot of Mayans (who, incidentally, are disdained and treated poorly by Mexican Spanish-speakers) really the best answer to the needs of our industry and the immigrants’ aspirations? Or is there a better way to help people capitalize who really want to do it? Is unlimited immigration just another subsidy to American industry combined with a clumsy and inefficient form of foreign aid, with the economic and social cost of “ghetto generation” left for taxpayers to pay?

Sometimes I think maybe it is. Sometimes I think a new algorithm is both needed and overdue, and that we’re all concentrating on the wrong things.