A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

[Bob Gray]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I'm not sure what you're saying. Do you think culture is some sort of First Cause that can't be affected by other factors?

Parents naturally, biologically care about their kids. It takes a huge contrary force to counter that, and our system creates that force by pushing people into ghettos, poverty, drug abuse, and incarceration. Some of those things are addressable, and fixing them relaxes the tension in the network and allows culture to move back to where it normally resides -- supporting family.

I think you're falling into the Biological Fallacy, where culture is viewed as some sort of living organism that has its own will. That's not true at all -- a culture, like an economy, isn't really a thing at all, it's just the sum of forces brought to bear on individuals from tensions throughout society. Relax those tensions and the warping effect on individuals will dissipate.

I think it's not either or. Outside circumstances substantially shape the choices we make, but the individual also has responsibility for the choices they make. So, you're correct to an extent, but so is Critical Thinker in that an improvement in circumstances won't fix everything and make people necessarily make the right choices. Look at rich people, who in certain ways definitely have advantages in life, but often have lives that are really messed up.

 

[Kepler]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I think it's not either or. Outside circumstances substantially shape the choices we make, but the individual also has responsibility for the choices they make. So, you're correct to an extent, but so is Critical Thinker in that an improvement in circumstances won't fix everything and make people necessarily make the right choices. Look at rich people, who in certain ways definitely have advantages in life, but often have lives that are really messed up.

True, being rich -- at least, growing up rich -- has rival environmental dangers (Paris Hilton and Mitt Romney are case studies of how both ignorant and clever people can fall afoul of spoiled bliss).

Environmental circumstances provide the mean around which the distribution arranges itself normally. Graphing a y-axis of "moral strength" against an x-axis of wealth, the graph would look like the camel hump y = -x^2, with x=0 as the median wealth in the society. But each of those points would itself be simply the mid-point of a normal distribution of actual people varying on all their other characteristics, including innate, individual character.

One of the many salubious effects of leveling is it pulls more people towards a higher ethical mid-point from which to add (or subtract) their personal characteristics.

 

[geezer]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

True, being rich -- at least, growing up rich -- has rival environmental dangers (Paris Hilton and Mitt Romney are case studies of how both ignorant and clever people can fall afoul of spoiled bliss).

I'd love to hear more of how you define failure at life.

 

[Slap Shot]

I'd love to hear more of how you define failure at life.

Lacking integrity is a good place to start.

 

[Priceless]

I'd love to hear more of how you define failure at life.

Snorting coke off some guy's back in your sex tape.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I'd love to hear more of how you define failure at life.

Anyone who doesn't share his world view must have something wrong with them??

 

[Rover]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I'd love to hear more of how you define failure at life.

Do you have any mirrors in your house?

 

[geezer]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

Snorting coke off some guy's back in your sex tape.

Do you have any mirrors in your house?

This is exactly what I would have expected from you two, who know much less about me than you pretend to, but I was asking Kepler. I was surprised by his equating Mitt Romney with Paris Hilton in life outcomes.
But I have to know, where did you get a copy of that tape?

Have any of you guys watched the Mitt campaign documentary? Any other opinions on him as a human being? (Priceless and Rover, I'll politely ask you to refrain from commenting)

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

This is exactly what I would have expected from you two, who know much less about me than you pretend to, but I was asking Kepler. I was surprised by his equating Mitt Romney with Paris Hilton in life outcomes.
But I have to know, where did you get a copy of that tape?

Have any of you guys watched the Mitt campaign documentary? Any other opinions on him as a human being? (Priceless and Rover, I'll politely ask you to refrain from commenting)

I find nothing surprising about drawing that parallel. Nothing at all.

 

[geezer]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I find nothing surprising about drawing that parallel. Nothing at all.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised either, but it's hard for me to understand how most people view accomplishment. For one thing, I realize CEO's are pure evil so that's a black mark , but Mitt was also Governor for quite some time. Is the public service thing not cool any more? Or maybe losing a national popularity contest cancels that out? The unpopularity with the masses is the only commonality I'm seeing. Is all human worth based on popularity?

 

[Rover]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

This is exactly what I would have expected from you two, who know much less about me than you pretend to, but I was asking Kepler. I was surprised by his equating Mitt Romney with Paris Hilton in life outcomes.
But I have to know, where did you get a copy of that tape?

Have any of you guys watched the Mitt campaign documentary? Any other opinions on him as a human being? (Priceless and Rover, I'll politely ask you to refrain from commenting)

Sorry Sparky, but I don't take orders from you.

I have watched Mitt and its amusing for two reasons. 1) the look on his face when he lost, and 2) how he seems like a nice guy completely out of touch with reality.

Romney has disgraced himself post-election with the biggest case of sour grapes this side of John McCain.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I guess I shouldn't be surprised either, but it's hard for me to understand how most people view accomplishment. For one thing, I realize CEO's are pure evil so that's a black mark , but Mitt was also Governor for quite some time. Is the public service thing not cool any more? Or maybe losing a national popularity contest cancels that out? The unpopularity with the masses is the only commonality I'm seeing. Is all human worth based on popularity?

His level of arrogance is off the charts. He's the atypical rich guy who is totally clueless on how most people have to live. Popularity has nothing to do with it.

 

[geezer]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I don't take orders from you.

Listen, nobody's giving you orders. It was actually a request made for your own benefit, not mine. This immature response is a good illustration of how you could serve your own credibility by backing off for a while when your fits of temper get out of your control.

 

[Rover]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

Listen, nobody's giving you orders. It was actually a request made for your own benefit, not mine. This immature response is a good illustration of how you could serve your own credibility by backing off for a while when your fits of temper get out of your control.

Thank you gramps for looking out for my own interests! Perhaps you'd like to share with us your thoughts as election results started rolling in that night in 2012...

 

[Bob Gray]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

True, being rich -- at least, growing up rich -- has rival environmental dangers (Paris Hilton and Mitt Romney are case studies of how both ignorant and clever people can fall afoul of spoiled bliss).

Environmental circumstances provide the mean around which the distribution arranges itself normally. Graphing a y-axis of "moral strength" against an x-axis of wealth, the graph would look like the camel hump y = -x^2, with x=0 as the median wealth in the society. But each of those points would itself be simply the mid-point of a normal distribution of actual people varying on all their other characteristics, including innate, individual character.

One of the many salubious effects of leveling is it pulls more people towards a higher ethical mid-point from which to add (or subtract) their personal characteristics.

You make it much more formulaic than I believe it is, but I'll agree there's some merit in what you say. If you were religious, you'd make a good Calvinist.

Salubious? Or probably meant to be Salubrious? Always fun when people use words that aren't part of everyday speech.

 

[geezer]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

His level of arrogance is off the charts.

wait, aren't you from Minnesota? That should be a positive

I can understand the personal dislike, and how those impressions can vary. But I was really curious if Kepler's comment about Mitt and Paris coming from wealth and both failing at life had any other measures to it besides likeability/popularity.

 

[FreshFish]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

Have any of you guys watched the Mitt campaign documentary? Any other opinions on him as a human being?

While I have not seen the Romney documentary, I'd like to some day. I've heard that the filmmakers had unusually good access for a movie of that type, and that they were fairly even-handed in letting the facts speak for themselves.

The first time I had heard of Mitt Romney was in 1998 or 1999. We lived in the southwest corner of Wyoming at that time, probably 45 minute drive from Park City, Utah. The Salt Lake City Olympics were heading toward major debacle / huge embarrassment meltdown. He was asked to step in, and he accepted, taking $1 in salary for his work. The transformation of that enterprise was truly extraordinary. For those who had not heard of him before, the general consensus was "wow, how did they find this guy? what an amazing job he did!"

Then to learn later that he had renounced his family's fortune upon graduating from college, determined to make his "own" way (yeah, the naysayers will say that even without his father's money he still had his dad's name and connections....).

 

[geezer]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

While I have not seen the Romney documentary, I'd like to some day.

I have to admit I haven't seen it either. I only read a favorable review in a very liberal magazine that said if he had acted like himself during the campaign instead of acting like an actor playing a politician, he probably would have won in a landslide. The value of being genuine. For the reviewer, anyway, it totally changed her opinion of Mitt.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

I have to admit I haven't seen it either. I only read a favorable review in a very liberal magazine that said if he had acted like himself during the campaign instead of acting like an actor playing a politician, he probably would have won in a landslide. The value of being genuine. For the reviewer, anyway, it totally changed her opinion of Mitt.

That's funny cause I knew exactly who he was and what my opinion of him was when he said that Corporations are people.

 

[Kepler]

Re: A Discussion of US Immigration Policy

This is exactly what I would have expected from you two, who know much less about me than you pretend to, but I was asking Kepler. I was surprised by his equating Mitt Romney with Paris Hilton in life outcomes.

I was comparing Mitt and Paris in the following way: both grew up so privileged it evidently made it impossible for them to understand people outside their circumstances. Paris is obvious -- life is one long party. Mitt is less obvious but way worse -- wealth is theological election; those with wealth are by definition fit to rule; the habits and mores of the wealthy are both signs and means of superiority. He channels the 19th century robber baron pseudo-philosophy of William Graham Sumner's "What the Social Classes Owe Each Other" (spoiler: the answer is "nothing") and basks in von Misean bromides of laissez-faire utopia. He, and his peers, are untouched by the suffering caused by their philosophies because they are committed to abstractions that have been rebutted in practice for hundreds of years. Like Bolsheviks, the ideal is all -- the path to paradise may be strewn with corpses but everyone is better off in the long run. Their insouciance is unshakable, and many look up to them, mistaking as sanguine what is merely idle detachment.

There is a special circle of hell reserved for the rich man who calls the poor man greedy. Even if he does it just to brace himself against his conscience and shut out the cries of suffering around him, because he's too lazy and too self-absorbed to do anything about it, it is still one of the last mortal sins.