grannywils

I will second Lady Milla's vote for George Orwell. Her reasoning was flawless.

You're probably all surprised to see me here, as it has been quite some time. However, I was reading over this thread this morning and those of you who remember me at all will surely know on which side I stand. But my real reason for jumping into the fray is because of the astounding lack of respect I felt was being displayed by all of you that were on one side of the debate towards Colorwheels, who was the only one on the other side of the debate. I do not happen to know Colorwheels and have no particular agenda with respect to him/her (not sure). But I do know that (I will just say she because I'm not sure) debates here frequently, and I did not think it was necessary for Kvnchrist to give her lessons in debating technique or for either Aurielius or HeyYou (both of whom I consider to be friends of mine) to belittle some of her comments simply because they disagreed. As a matter of fact some of what she said was spot on in my opinion. Some of you may take it lightly, but we are in fact slowly but surely destroying our planet. We are burning fossil fuels and pumping CO2 into the atmosphere at an alarming rate losing our ozone layer. The Antartic glaciers are disappearing and the wildlife that depends on them is losing its homeland. We are spilling oil into our oceans on a regular basis. We dump our garbage wherever it is most convenient. Many of us don't want the inconvenience of recycling. I could go on an on. But some of you mention the financial hardships put on us by those "crying over" global warming. When the planet is gone there will be no financial hardships for those future generations. I guess I have said my piece.

All of a sudden I have started automatically equipping gear and armor looted from chests or bandits. This began happening mid-game while I was in an ordinary, everyday dungeon. I'm sure I have accidentally struck a key combo or something telling my game to do this. But I have no Idea how to get it to stop. Does anyone know how to fix this?? If so, please advise. Thank you so much.

Still have no serious computer, and now cannot even resort to booze (although some of the above posts have left me sorely tempted). But I have a dentist appointment shortly and feel compelled to show up sober. Hubby is working feverishly on my computer, and I hope to have it back soon.

Hey guys, my computer just took a dive and I'm trying to type on my husband's laptop. After typing an extremely erudite and brilliant response to all of the above, I just managed to delete it in its entirety. As a result, I'm leaving you for the evening and taking to drink!!!

@HeyYou, although your points are well taken I do not see how either of us are truly addressing the issue at hand. The borders are overflowing with people wishing to come to this country with a false belief that this is a land of opportunity for them. On this side of the border we have an overwhelming number of poor illegal immigrants who have already arrived with that same belief and found it to be untrue. Also on this side of the border we have an inordinate number of poorly educated, poorly housed, poorly fed and in a vast majority of cases unemployed poor American citizens who live here legally. In the meantime, we apparently do not have housing, medical services, proper educational facilities or jobs available for our own citizens, let alone the already resident illegal aliens. Naturally the clamoring hordes at the border are causing quite an uproar from our outraged citizenry. Everyone wants something done about this invasion. Not only that, but everyone thinks all those illegals should be shipped out post haste!! I just wonder how the government (who hasn't been able to get out of its own way and has not been able to properly administer any of its own programs to provide food, medicine, education and jobs to those most in need among us) is expected to be able to actually administer this function of getting the borders closed and finding and shipping out all these dangerous, and according to some, costly illegals. If somehow we manage to accomplish the sealing of the borders and the deportation of all illegals, what then? Will everyone in power and all American be happy with the status quo? What about all those already unemployed poor? As you have already so clearly pointed out in your above post, why bother giving a decent education to a child and enabling him to have an opportunity for a decent job when there are no decent jobs to be had??? Shall we just shut ourselves off from the rest of the world and pretend that we are still the most important and superior nation in the world just because we are the most powerful and yes, the most willing to come to the aid of those we think deserve our aid. PS. @Aurielius. Regarding the statistics, I realized that we can all find statistics to back our arguments, so decided to just drop the statistics line of reasoning. But noticed you did not respond to anything else that I said in my prior post. ..Granny..

Although you misunderstand me if you believe that I am suggesting that the government should be big brother and step in to solve all our problems, I do believe that government of the people, by the people and for the people does have a role to play in seeing to it that all of its citizens have a basic education in order to strike out into the labor market and become tax paying members of society. By the way, according to a 2012 report by the Council of Economic Advisers Poverty has declined by more than one third since 1967. The percent of the population in poverty when measured to include tax credits and other benefits has declined from 25.8% to 16.0 percent in 2012. Once again, I never suggested that we should have an open door policy to immigration. I said in my first post and every once since that we needed to resolve our immigration problems with hard and fast laws and by making it extremely unattractive and unappealing for anyone to want to come hear illegally. But I also said in each of my posts that I do not believe that our government or those in power behind our government really want that to happen. I will try to say this now in plain English using small words. I believe that there are many in this country who profit by having illegal aliens enter this country. I believe that they may even help and encourage them to enter this country. I believe that they use these illegal aliens in various capacities once they arrive. In some cases they may use them as cheap labor in factories or on ranches and farms. In some cases they may be dispersed throughout the nation for work in homes as nannies or household workers. In other cases they may be trafficked as sex workers or drug and/or weapons mules. This is of course a double edged sword for the poor in this country. It adds more poor, i.e. both the legitimate poor already living here, and now the new illegals. And secondly it takes away those few low paying jobs that may have been available to the poor already here. For some in power this might be exactly what they wanted all along. We have a much larger lower class, a disappearing middle class and a fat and happy upper class who is left to complain about all the problems they have with those lazy poor people who won't go to work. Naturally, there is much more to that scenario, but my point is that I am NOT, I repeat, NOT proposing that we just let everyone in who is having a hard time at home, or that we just add more government programs to take care of everyone who needs a handout. Your last post seems to suggest that because I am Liberal I just want the government to fix it. What I think I am trying to say is that I recognize the same problem that you do, but that I do not see the immigrants or the poor as the problem. Nor do I think that they need to bear all the burden of the solution. What I think is that if they government wants to fix it they need to get off their rosy red butts and start to take it seriously. They need to stop being lead around by their noses by the big money in corporate America (or wherever) and start listening to the needs of their constituencies. And I am speaking of all of them, not just one side of the aisle or the other. Hopefully I have been more clear this time.

@Aurielius, ok since I so strongly agree with your above post #31 I have decided to withdraw my decision to remove myself from your thread. This is partially true since a very dear friend of mine has erroneously implied to me in private that I am "chicken". Since I am not "chicken" and am always willing to engage in a good debate, I have returned. It would please me however to know just how your post #29 expressed your countervailing opinion to anything that I or any previous debater had said. For some reason it just sounded to me as though it was meant as a jibe of some sort, and my immediate reaction was to want to respond in kind. Since I did not want to lower this very good and well thought out topic to that level I chose to bow out. If I am incorrect about your intentions, I sincerely apologize. If you truly believe that the government should play no role in supporting any of its people in any way shape or form including providing basic education to its citizens, I guess we may be farther apart in our political views than I suspected. In addition, I'm not even sure that I got the point with respect to the American Indians. So, before I respond to what I think it meant, may I ask you to explain the meaning? P.S. And, yes, I know it was a quote from Henry Ford, but I want to know what you had in mind by using it as your post.

@Aurielius, I have thought and thought about how to respond to your above post and finally decided that the best thing for me to do is to remove myself from this thread. Thanks though for posting an interesting and thought provoking thread. I did enjoy it for awhile.

@VAGRANT0, you seem to have hit the nail squarely on the head in your above post. We can go off in so many directions here that my head begins to spin. Although the subject of our thread is "broken borders" and is meant to be dealing with illegal immigration, the problem now sounds as if it deals with many issues, as least one being the labor pool, perhaps another being education of our poorer classes, and perhaps there are others. The reason I said in an earlier post that I thought that if those with the "real" power wanted to fix this they would is because I believe it is much more expedient to utilize this font of poor, often non English-speaking peoples for those jobs that cannot be filled by even the poorest of Americans. We can get into another thread if you wish about why this is so. Lack of decent wages and working conditions are at least partially to blame. However, I am sure there are those of you with other opinions. Secondly, since it does not seem that we are willing to seriously consider raising the standard of even our most basic education in this, the most powerful nation in the world, we are rapidly developing a generation of illiterate youth. This is certainly true among a majority of those unfortunate enough to be schooled in the poorest neighborhoods, but it seems to be true amongst a large majority of American youngsters. I find it rather appalling when I listen to or read the writings of our young people today. Yes, there are exceptions, of course; and yes we have some who rise to the top. But I have no idea where we will find that bottom tier or even the middle tier that Vagrant0 speaks of. We do not want to pay to educate them. And we just keep on keeping the poor down, and bringing in more poor to take away what few jobs they have left.

JIMUK, there are those on the left who do recognize what mass immigration is doing to the poorest among us and who do oppose it. I for one have no slavish adherence to political correctness, but rather consider it an injudicious waste of time thought up in a desultory fashion by a group of self-satisfied, self-indulgent, possibly well-meaning folks who hadn't a clue about which they were speaking and the long-term ramifications thereof. I, for one, do still have values which is why I still occasionally take the time to come onto these threads and say my piece. Although my opinions may differ from others, I do respect them and even sometimes agree with them. In fact, I agree with your premise that the paymasters do not want the immigration issue solved. In my original post I indicated that I felt the issue was probably beyond salvation. This was not because I did not think we could build a wall high enough or find enough guns to fight off all those young men, old people, women and children storming the barricades. There is no doubt in my mind that if the "real" powers that be in this country "really" wanted this issue resolved they could get it done. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the subject has become so extremely politicized now that the American public actually believes that we have a say in what happens on our borders. I don't really believe it. We are speaking here on this thread of immigration, but what about the other trafficking that is taking place across our borders? Human beings, drugs and pharmaceuticals, weapons, etc. I believe some of these go hand in hand with what is taking place on our borders. But it seems as though law enforcement is turning a blind eye to much of it, and I am not sure why. I guess I have said enough for now...

Thank you, HARBRINGE, for responding to the question regarding the payment of taxes by illegals and for the link you provided. You have also brought up some interesting questions which have concerned me regarding who, how and why it is so easy for these children to be brought into this country and trafficked. I believe it is really a subject for a separate thread, as I don't believe it has anything to do with illegal immigration but rather another much more sinister topic. AURIELIUS, in answer to the second half of your question regarding your school taxes, I'm not sure how many illegals are attending your local schools, but hopefully those who do are receiving quality educations. if they have not been among the above referenced tax payers, my only hope is that the quality education they have received will enable them to attain higher education and go on to productive working lives thereby paying back the community several times over. VAGRENT0, thank you for getting back and breaking down so clearly just how this issue has become so politicized. I could not agree with you more. Politicians and Big Business have taken what amounts to an issue of mere geography and humanity and turned it into a sounding board for whatever suits them during their particular campaign. Whatever, hatred and fear can be engendered in order to win over votes will be used. I stand by my original thread, stating that we do have a serious immigration issue which needs to be handled. However, I do not believe it needs to handled on the basis of political expediency; and I do believe that we need to somehow have serious hard and fast laws written and implemented and stringently followed.

Although I understand why Vagrant0 says "welcome to politics", I personally do not see this as a political issue in spite of the way it has become politicized in recent times. My take on the "immigration crisis" and our "broken borders" as outlined by the OP is fairly well stated in his last 3 sentences but one: "The plain fact is that everyone worldwide wants a better qualitative standard of living but it is not our responsibility to provide that to people who do not respect the process of entry. Economic hardship in the country of origin is not grounds for asylum. Local sanctuary municipalities should be taken to Federal Court for exceeding their statutory authority". Yes, we do need solutions and not another temporary fix; but I'm not even sure that we can fix it anymore. Without imposing hard and fast legislation preventing those entering the country illegally from garnering any benefit whatsoever, it will be nigh on impossible to prevent them from entering in my opinion. I do not believe that this type of legislation could be passed by any Congress at this point, Right, Left or In Between. All this talk about a "Wall" is pure nonsense. We do not live in a vacuum; nor should we. We cannot lock out all the "bad guys". If you're curious about how well that would work, speak to the Homeland Security folks. Where I will probably differ with many who have already posted is with respect to those who are already in this country living Productive, tax paying lives. I would be willing to allow these folks to apply for citizenship. I would also recommend allowing the children of these folks automatic citizenship. I would not expect children who have grown up in this country and gone through our school system and stayed out of the legal system (i.e. jail, etc.) to have to be deported because their parents came here illegally. There is much to be said about the above, but that is my basic philosophy. and we are having a thunderstorm and I have to shut down my computer....

To all who have posted yesterday, and more importantly to all those who stood up against unseemly odds and did what had to be done without a second thought, thank you. I have had no internet or phone service for several days or I would have posted yesterday. So sorry...