"It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor," wrote Eric Ho

[JackLuis]

"It is easier to love humanity as a whole than to love one's neighbor," wrote Eric Ho

Is it easier to "love" an imagined image of our "neighbors", and still not talk much to you next door neighbor?

Can we "Love the Hispanic, coming for freedom and hope, to our Shining Cities", yet despise the grubby homeless refuse of our disposable society?

Is it possible to want Immigration reform, and still hire Home Depot Parking lot laborers by the hour, if only to make sure that they eat enough to avoid petty crime?

 

[Boxlicker101]

Is it easier to "love" an imagined image of our "neighbors", and still not talk much to you next door neighbor?

Can we "Love the Hispanic, coming for freedom and hope, to our Shining Cities", yet despise the grubby homeless refuse of our disposable society?

Is it possible to want Immigration reform, and still hire Home Depot Parking lot laborers by the hour, if only to make sure that they eat enough to avoid petty crime?

That depends on your next-door neighbor. I like all my immediate neighbors, but I have known some real bastards that I would hate to even have to share a city with.

I can certainly respect the Hispanic, and anybody else who wants a better life for themselves and their families. I don't despise anybody, mainly because I used to be one of those grubby homeless refuse. At the same time, I don't like the idea of giving handouts, unless it will help them get out of their predicaments.

I would like to see immigration reform. As far as I can see, I believe those shores should be open enough to allow in anybody who will become a contributing member of society, and that would range from fruit picker to brain surgeon.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

BOX

What a retard. America has an immigration protocol for all the unwashed masses you cherish but they dont wanna get in the line. And they sure as Hell dont want nobody looking at their criminal records.

 

[driphoney]

Is it easier to "love" an imagined image of our "neighbors", and still not talk much to you next door neighbor?

Can we "Love the Hispanic, coming for freedom and hope, to our Shining Cities", yet despise the grubby homeless refuse of our disposable society?

Is it possible to want Immigration reform, and still hire Home Depot Parking lot laborers by the hour, if only to make sure that they eat enough to avoid petty crime?

To answer your bottom comment, yes, I think that's possible.

I also think most US natives don't have a clue about the complications. How it's easy to go into and out of legal status--while waiting in line. How part of a family can be legal, the other part not. One spouse gets legal, the other was legal, now due to paperwork hold-ups, the second falls out of legal status. How the oldest non-US born child is illegal and the two younger sibs are legal and speak only English and have never been outside the US. The variations go on and on.

We are not going to stuff this genie back into the bottle, and immigration reform is needed. Sadly, until the demagoguery stops on both sides, nothing much good will happen.

As for hating my neighbors, nope, I don't and don't have the stats, but believe most of the homeless here in my town are not Hispanic. However, a number of the homeowners surrounding me are of Hispanic descent.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I like my neighbors but have little affection for humanity as a whole. The guy has it all backwards.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DRIPSTICK

I start one of my stories with a helicopter dropping Mexicans onto a plaza below as a loudspeaker attached to the whirlybird plays ITS RAINING MEN.

You cant be more wrong about there is no solution. Of course there is, what we lack is the stomach to do it.

The government wont deal with the problem, and sooner or later the wetbacks will screw with the wrong folks and find themselves going home without a parachute.

 

[3113]

I like my neighbors but have little affection for humanity as a whole. The guy has it all backwards.

Well, Bear, I'm in agreement, but I have this suspicion that it may look backward only to us. We're Autistic and what most folk feel doesn't always make sense to us....

 

[Freefall_mc]

DRIPSTICK

I start one of my stories with a helicopter dropping Mexicans onto a plaza below as a loudspeaker attached to the whirlybird plays ITS RAINING MEN.

You cant be more wrong about there is no solution. Of course there is, what we lack is the stomach to do it.

The government wont deal with the problem, and sooner or later the wetbacks will screw with the wrong folks and find themselves going home without a parachute.

http://*******.com/2wh9d74

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Well, Bear, I'm in agreement, but I have this suspicion that it may look backward only to us. We're Autistic and what most folk feel doesn't always make sense to us....

And that makes us wrong?




http://i264.photobucket.com/albums/ii177/1volupturary_manque/lol.gif

 

[rgraham666]

Conversely it's easier to hate humanity as a whole than to hate one's neighbor. Humanity is an abstraction whereas your neighbors are real.

 

[TE999]

Is it easier to "love" an imagined image of our "neighbors", and still not talk much to you next door neighbor?

In that same general context, it's easy to dislike or hate people grouped by political persuasion, ethnicity,religion or sexual orientation and yet be friends with individuals in those groupings. A person, as a general rule, is much less threatening than a group of said persons...unless you stand 5' 2" and they stand 6' 4".

 

[3113]

And that makes us wrong?

Naw. We're always right. Just no one believes us

 

[Boxlicker101]

DRIPSTICK

I start one of my stories with a helicopter dropping Mexicans onto a plaza below as a loudspeaker attached to the whirlybird plays ITS RAINING MEN.

You cant be more wrong about there is no solution. Of course there is, what we lack is the stomach to do it.

The government wont deal with the problem, and sooner or later the wetbacks will screw with the wrong folks and find themselves going home without a parachute.

I'm trying to figure out how to segue that into a story of fun sex, and coming up blank. Maybe having some perv start cornholing one of the guys who has just hit the pavement, but that doesn't seem very sexy.

 

[trysail]

"It is difficult to think the worst of one's fellow man but one is seldom incorrect in doing so."

- H. L. Mencken

_______________________

"Good fences make good neighbors."

-Robert Frost

_______________________


"The only thing that can ruin a nice day is people."

-Ernest Hemingway

 

[dr_mabeuse]

In that same general context, it's easy to dislike or hate people grouped by political persuasion, ethnicity,religion or sexual orientation and yet be friends with individuals in those groupings. A person, as a general rule, is much less threatening than a group of said persons...unless you stand 5' 2" and they stand 6' 4".

Yeah. It's much easier to hate groups than it is to hate the individuals who comprise them. That's why the first technique of the hate-monger is to generalize, and tar all enemies with the same brush. It strips people of their individuality, distances you from what you have in common, and finally dehumanizes them, making it easier to abuse them, mistreat them, and even eliminate them.

But then, it works the other way too. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "I love humanity. It's people I can't stand."

 

[driphoney]

DRIPSTICK
You cant be more wrong about there is no solution. Of course there is, what we lack is the stomach to do it.

I didn't mean to indicate there is no solution. I also think it's part no stomach, but also no common sense. On both sides of the issue.

But do you think this will be a problem in twenty years? Most immigrants crossing the southern border are Mexican. The Mexican birth rate has fallen dramatically over the last twenty years.

http://american.com/archive/2007/june-0607/mexican-immigration-will-solve-itself

That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't have a decent immigration policy.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I didn't mean to indicate there is no solution. I also think it's part no stomach, but also no common sense. On both sides of the issue.

But do you think this will be a problem in twenty years? Most immigrants crossing the southern border are Mexican. The Mexican birth rate has fallen dramatically over the last twenty years.

http://american.com/archive/2007/june-0607/mexican-immigration-will-solve-itself

That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't have a decent immigration policy.

We have an immigration policy. We dont respect it nor do the Mexicans.

When the cops wont remove them its time to shove them out the door.

 

[driphoney]

We have an immigration policy. We dont respect it nor do the Mexicans.

When the cops wont remove them its time to shove them out the door.

You're right. But that's been the issue for, oh, twenty or thirty years. If we had enforced, then updated, the immigration policy, and funded it, ours would probably be working like most of the rest of the world's policies. But we didn't. It's an easy-to-say, but not-so-easy-to-do answer to say we just shove them all back out the door.

But it's okay if we disagree on some of this. I don't see much happening in the near future.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

You're right. But that's been the issue for, oh, twenty or thirty years. If we had enforced, then updated, the immigration policy, and funded it, ours would probably be working like most of the rest of the world's policies. But we didn't. It's an easy-to-say, but not-so-easy-to-do answer to say we just shove them all back out the door.

But it's okay if we disagree on some of this. I don't see much happening in the near future.

America traditionally ignores polarizing issues until the sides are so rigid no middle ground is acceptable, then Hell is in session. And Hell is what we're gonna get. We'll either shove the wetbacks out or forfeit the West to Mexico.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I didn't mean to indicate there is no solution. I also think it's part no stomach, but also no common sense. On both sides of the issue.

But do you think this will be a problem in twenty years? Most immigrants crossing the southern border are Mexican. The Mexican birth rate has fallen dramatically over the last twenty years.

http://american.com/archive/2007/june-0607/mexican-immigration-will-solve-itself

That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't have a decent immigration policy.

The Mexican birth rate might be declining slightly, but the population of the country is still growing and the birth rate is higher than that of the US.

 

[driphoney]

The Mexican birth rate might be declining slightly, but the population of the country is still growing and the birth rate is higher than that of the US.

It didn't decline slightly, it declined a lot.

US fertility rate: 2.06 children per woman (2010 est.)
Mexican fertility rate: 2.31 children per woman (2010 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html?countryName=United%20States&countryCode=us&regionCode=na&rank=124#us

When 2.1 is considered break even, both the US and Mexican numbers look similar. Just a couple of decades ago Mexicans were having 9 or 10 kids in a family.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

And that's not just Mexico. The entire world's birthrate is dropping. Despite the hystericrats, it looks very unlikely that the global population will ever reach 9 billion. By 2100, on the other hand, it will probably drop back down to no more than 5 billion. There is a strong possibility that within a couple of hundred years, the entire world will have no more human beings than the United States does now. There are entire countries and cultures that will disappear because they aren't sufficiently child-friendly.

 

[trysail]

"Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."

-Robert A. Heinlein

 

[Boxlicker101]

"Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort."

-Robert A. Heinlein

I agree with what you say about political tags, but do you really mean to call people like Hitler and Stalin and Mao and similar SOB's of History Idealists? They just wanted to be the ones in control. Others, such as Cromwell and Cotton Mather and Khomeini might be called idealists, because they wanted everybody to be closer to what they called God, but they were still assholes.

 

[trysail]

I agree with what you say about political tags, but do you really mean to call people like Hitler and Stalin and Mao and similar SOB's of History Idealists? They just wanted to be the ones in control. Others, such as Cromwell and Cotton Mather and Khomeini might be called idealists, because they wanted everybody to be closer to what they called God, but they were still assholes.

Most of the Hitlers and Maos of history started out as "world savers." It's when motivation becomes subordinate to Machiavelli that the trouble begins.



"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."
-H. L. Mencken