Andy9o8 3 #51 August 25, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteSucks to be in El Paso. Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! I suggest you read the sources first: it's the FBI statistics. Now I recognize that statistical methodology and analysis can be manipulated, but read the sources first before just reacting. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
turtlespeed 226 #52 August 25, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteSucks to be in El Paso. Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! I suggest you read the sources first: it's the FBI statistics. Now I recognize that statistical methodology and analysis can be manipulated, but read the sources first before just reacting. I used to live there. I still have friends and family there. I used to work there. I have friends and family that work there. I get news updates and accounts of goings on there from people that witnessed it or lived nearby. Those statistics don't lie. The city I live in now has far less crime than El Paso. The ranking is false.I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dgskydive 0 #53 August 25, 2010 Or finally legalize weed and make selling blow a death penalty offense. That will slow it down.Dom Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
turtlespeed 226 #54 August 25, 2010 Quote Or finally legalize weed and make selling blow a death penalty offense. That will slow it down. Or more lucrativeI'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
dgskydive 0 #55 August 25, 2010 Your right Andy. It is ranked as 1st or 2nd. That will change if stray bullets start dropping people instead of hitting buildings though.Dom Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andy9o8 3 #56 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteSucks to be in El Paso. Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! I suggest you read the sources first: it's the FBI statistics. Now I recognize that statistical methodology and analysis can be manipulated, but read the sources first before just reacting. I used to live there. I still have friends and family there. I used to work there. I have friends and family that work there. I get news updates and accounts of goings on there from people that witnessed it or lived nearby. Those statistics don't lie. The city I live in now has far less crime than El Paso. The ranking is false. OK, then obviously there's a discrepancy between the anecdotal evidence (which is valuable, but not necessarily scientific) and the statistical evidence (which may be scientific, but may also be manipulable). So how does someone from the outside looking in - like me, for example - get an accurate picture? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
turtlespeed 226 #57 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteSucks to be in El Paso. Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! I suggest you read the sources first: it's the FBI statistics. Now I recognize that statistical methodology and analysis can be manipulated, but read the sources first before just reacting. I used to live there. I still have friends and family there. I used to work there. I have friends and family that work there. I get news updates and accounts of goings on there from people that witnessed it or lived nearby. Those statistics don't lie. The city I live in now has far less crime than El Paso. The ranking is false. OK, then obviously there's a discrepancy between the anecdotal evidence (which is valuable, but not necessarily scientific) and the statistical evidence (which may be scientific, but may also be manipulable). So how does someone from the outside looking in - like me, for example - get an accurate picture? I am torn. I don't even understand what their agenda is for this report. It just doesn't make sense, the figures they have. The only way that it could possible be is if they are doing the analysis and they do not include the gang violence and any illegal immigrant activity in their numbers. But hell, I'm no statistician . . . who knows what their paramaters were. Obviously I have no hard evidence and haven't done any mass survey myself, so i really have nothing more than a strong feeling that the ranking is wrong. OK - so - yeah - I'm probably wrong.I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #58 August 26, 2010 QuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #59 August 26, 2010 Quote Quote This decision is great news! Not a decision, just an opinion piece printed in Canada. Amazing how the neo-cons usually tell Canada to fuck themselves, now they count Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #60 August 26, 2010 Quote Ever heard of the pebble in the shoe? Yes, that is now the GOP, they are a pesky little minority, but we love em anyway Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
turtlespeed 226 #61 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #62 August 26, 2010 QuoteThe Supreme Court has indicated that Art. III. sec. 2, cl. 2 does not mean that it is mandatory that every case involving a state as a party must go directly to the Supreme Court. "We construe Art. III, sec. 2, cl. 2 to honor our original jurisdiction but to make it obligatory only in appropriate cases. And the question of what is appropriate concerns, of course, the seriousness and dignity of the claim; yet beyond that it necessarily involves the availability of another forum where there is jurisdiction over the named parties, where the issues tendered may be litigated, and where appropriate relief may be had." Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U.S. 437, 451 (1992) (quoting Illinois v. City of Milwaukee, 406 U.S. 91, 93 (1972)). The attorney who wrote this article was either aware of this and was trying to make a political point, or he was not aware of this, which means he isn't very bright. Either way, it is hard to take this article seriously. Don't worry, though, this case will end up before the Supreme Court soon enough. Isn't it amazing when people grab a morsel of info and don't check its contemporary status? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #63 August 26, 2010 Quote Or finally legalize weed and make selling blow a death penalty offense. That will slow it down. And you would denounce China as a POS nation . Must be nice to selectively mve around your opinions. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #64 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. Yea, wasn't it nice when teh states legalized slavery? Wasn't it nice when the states legalized antimiscegenation (didn't allow diff races to marry)? Wasn't it noce when states legalized segregation esp with education? Now states are making illegal gay marriage; isn't that nice too? Seems like the states fuck things up; the fed does them right. FUCK STATE'S RIGHTS. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skyrider 0 #65 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteSucks to be in El Paso. Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! I suggest you read the sources first: it's the FBI statistics. Now I recognize that statistical methodology and analysis can be manipulated, but read the sources first before just reacting. I used to live there. I still have friends and family there. I used to work there. I have friends and family that work there. I get news updates and accounts of goings on there from people that witnessed it or lived nearby. Those statistics don't lie. The city I live in now has far less crime than El Paso. The ranking is false. FBI rankings have notthing to do with local crime, only federal crimes! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skyrider 0 #66 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. Yea, wasn't it nice when teh states legalized slavery? Wasn't it nice when the states legalized antimiscegenation (didn't allow diff races to marry)? Wasn't it noce when states legalized segregation esp with education? Now states are making illegal gay marriage; isn't that nice too? Seems like the states fuck things up; the fed does them right. FUCK STATE'S RIGHTS. Sounds liek the beginning of a communist society! You may want bay sitted by the feds, I will prefer to remain free! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 3,132 #67 August 26, 2010 >FBI rankings have notthing to do with local crime, only federal crimes! Nope: ================== Uniform Crime Reports A Word About UCR Data It is important for users of UCR data to remember that the FBI's primary objective is to generate a reliable set of crime statistics for use in law enforcement administration, operation, and management. The FBI does not provide a ranking of agencies but merely alphabetical tabulations of states, metropolitan statistical areas, cities, metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties, and colleges and universities. Law enforcement officials use this information for their designed purposes. Additionally, the American public relies on these data sets for information on the fluctuations in the level of crime from year to year, and criminologists, sociologists, legislators, city planners, the media, and other students of criminal justice use them for a variety of research and planning purposes. Since crime is a sociological phenomenon influenced by a variety of factors, the FBI discourages ranking the agencies and using the data as a measurement of law enforcement effectiveness. To ensure these data are uniformly reported, the FBI provides contributing law enforcement agencies with a handbook that explains how to classify and score offenses and provides uniform crime offense definitions. [B]Acknowledging that offense definitions may vary from state to state, the FBI cautions agencies to report offenses not according to local or state statutes but according to those guidelines provided in the handbook.[/B] Most agencies make a good faith effort to comply with established guidelines. =================== In other words, it's local crime reported based on a uniform nationwide set of standards. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
masterrig 1 #68 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteSucks to be in El Paso. Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! That's the damned truth!!! Chuck Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #69 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteQuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. Yea, wasn't it nice when teh states legalized slavery? Wasn't it nice when the states legalized antimiscegenation (didn't allow diff races to marry)? Wasn't it noce when states legalized segregation esp with education? Now states are making illegal gay marriage; isn't that nice too? Seems like the states fuck things up; the fed does them right. FUCK STATE'S RIGHTS. QuoteSounds liek the beginning of a communist society! Communist/Socialist; all the same if you don't know the difference. QuoteYou may want bay sitted by the feds, I will prefer to remain free! English as a second language? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites AndyBoyd 0 #70 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuote Could a state "declare war" or "wage war" using these SDFs under the US Constitution? Thats what started this thread. Go back and read the entire first post. OK, dude. I was trying to answer your question in a reasonable way, but I guess that didn't work. So here's a new answer. Sure, state militias have the right to wage war. Why don't you start one up and lead the charge over the border into Juarez? Let me know how it goes. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites billvon 3,132 #71 August 26, 2010 >>Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. >Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! This will really bake your noodle, then: ================= The El Paso Miracle How can a comparatively poor, high-immigration town that sits across the border from super-violent Ciudad Juarez be one of the safest big cities in America? Radley Balko July 6, 2009 By conventional wisdom, El Paso, Texas should be one of the scariest cities in America. In 2007, the city's poverty rate was a shade over 27 percent, more than twice the national average. Median household income was $35,600, well below the national average of $48,000. El Paso is three-quarters Hispanic, and more than a quarter of its residents are foreign-born. Given that it's nearly impossible for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States legitimately, it's safe to say that a significant percentage of El Paso's foreign-born population is living here illegally. El Paso also has some of the laxer gun control policies of any non-Texan big city in the country, mostly due to gun-friendly state law. And famously, El Paso sits just over the Rio Grande from one of the most violent cities in the western hemisphere, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, home to a staggering 2,500 homicides in the last 18 months alone. A city of illegal immigrants with easy access to guns, just across the river from a metropolis ripped apart by brutal drug war violence. Should be a bloodbath, right? Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23). El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Health magazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent. So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them. "If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country." If you regularly listen to talk radio, or get your crime news from anti-immigration pundits, all of this may come as a surprise. But it's not to many of those who study crime for a living. As the national immigration debate heated up in 2007, dozens of academics who specialize in the issue sent a letter (pdf) to then President George W. Bush and congressional leaders with the following point: Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso. One of the signatories was Rubén G. Rumbaut, a sociologist who studies immigration at the University of California, Irvine. Rumbaut recently presented a paper on immigration and crime to a Washington, D.C. conference sponsored by the Police Foundation. Rumbaut writes via email, "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder." Opponents of illegal immigration usually do little more than cite andecdotes attempting to link illegal immigration to violent crime. When they do try to use statistics, they come up short. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), for example, has perpetuated the popular myth that illegal immigrants murder 12 Americans per day, and kill another 13 by driving drunk. King says his figures come from a Government Accountability Office study he requested, which found that about 27 percent of inmates in the federal prison system are non-citizens. Colorado Media Matters looked into King's claim, and found his methodology lacking. King appears to have conjured his talking point by simply multiplying the annual number of murders and DWI fatalities in America by 27 percent. Of course, the GAO report only looked at federal prisons, not the state prisons and local jails where most convicted murderers and DWI offenders are kept. The Bureau of Justice Statistics puts the number of non-citizens (including legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (pdf). Of course, even that doesn't mean that non-citizens account for 6.4 percent of murders and DWI fatalities, only 6.4 percent of the overall inmate population. What's happening with Latinos is true of most immigrant groups throughout U.S. history. "Overall, immigrants have a stake in this country, and they recognize it," Northeastern University's Levin says. "They're really an exceptional sort of American. They come here having left their family and friends back home. They come at some cost to themselves in terms of security and social relationships. They are extremely success-oriented, and adjust very well to the competitive circumstances in the United States." Economists Kristin Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl argue that the very process of migration tends to select for people with a low potential for criminality. Despite the high profile of polemicists such as Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage, America has been mostly welcoming to this latest immigration wave. You don't see "Latinos Need Not Apply" or "No Mexicans" signs posted on public buildings the way you did with the Italians and the Irish, two groups who actually were disproportionately likely to turn to crime. The implication makes sense: An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country. "Look at Arab-Americans in the Midwest, especially in the Detroit area," Levin says. "The U.S. and Canada have traditionally been very willing to welcome and integrate them. They're a success story, with high average incomes and very little crime. That's not the case in Europe. Countries like France and Germany are openly hostile to Arabs. They marginalize them. And they've seen waves of crime and rioting." El Paso may be a concentrated affirmation of that theory. In 2007 the Washington Post reported on city leaders' wariness of anti-immigration policies coming out of Washington. The city went to court (and lost) in an effort to prevent construction of the border fence within its boundaries, and local officials have resisted federal efforts to enlist local police for immigration enforcement, arguing that it would make illegals less likely to cooperate with police. "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us." Other mayors could learn something from Cook. El Paso's embrace of its immigrants might be a big reason why the low-income border town has remained one of the safest places in the country. ============= Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites mnealtx 0 #72 August 26, 2010 2009 isn't 2010. There's a lot more violence associated with the cartels over last year.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Lucky... 0 #73 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuote Could a state "declare war" or "wage war" using these SDFs under the US Constitution? Thats what started this thread. Go back and read the entire first post. OK, dude. I was trying to answer your question in a reasonable way, but I guess that didn't work. So here's a new answer. Sure, state militias have the right to wage war. Why don't you start one up and lead the charge over the border into Juarez? Let me know how it goes. Educated, informed people like you will have no luck appealing to those who make knee-jerk reactions to issues; people who don't read or research. I come here in part to learn, I was unaware of the info you posted, it cleared up the issue and yet others just want to build the argument from the top-down, starting with how they want it to turn out and trying to build a case that caters to that vs learn the fundamentals and build the case bottom-up. This same poster thought it was Obama's fault for a Texas fed judge striking down stem cell funding; the judge was of course appointed by Reagan. Somehow that's Obama's fault to this poster. Don't argue with those who refuse to listen to reality. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites rhaig 0 #74 August 26, 2010 QuoteIf Mexican troops were amassing that would sweep in and plant a flag then yes. It could go to war. I don't see that going on now. what about former Mexican military with special forces training in organized units on the other side of the border moving in vehicle convoys protecting cargo with automatic weapons fire as it moves across the border? (yes, I think it would be silly, but I'm pointing out the very slight, although important, semantic difference between my described situation and "Mexican troops")-- Rob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites rhaig 0 #75 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. so you would support repealing the 10th amendment? How about dissolving the state lines all together? become one large territory?? become a true democracy maybe? toss away this republic we have... let's go with majority rule eh?-- Rob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next Page 3 of 5 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0
AndyBoyd 0 #70 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuote Could a state "declare war" or "wage war" using these SDFs under the US Constitution? Thats what started this thread. Go back and read the entire first post. OK, dude. I was trying to answer your question in a reasonable way, but I guess that didn't work. So here's a new answer. Sure, state militias have the right to wage war. Why don't you start one up and lead the charge over the border into Juarez? Let me know how it goes. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
billvon 3,132 #71 August 26, 2010 >>Do a Google search. It's currently ranked the second-safest city in the US. >Then whoever ranked them is a fucking LIAR! This will really bake your noodle, then: ================= The El Paso Miracle How can a comparatively poor, high-immigration town that sits across the border from super-violent Ciudad Juarez be one of the safest big cities in America? Radley Balko July 6, 2009 By conventional wisdom, El Paso, Texas should be one of the scariest cities in America. In 2007, the city's poverty rate was a shade over 27 percent, more than twice the national average. Median household income was $35,600, well below the national average of $48,000. El Paso is three-quarters Hispanic, and more than a quarter of its residents are foreign-born. Given that it's nearly impossible for low-skilled immigrants to work in the United States legitimately, it's safe to say that a significant percentage of El Paso's foreign-born population is living here illegally. El Paso also has some of the laxer gun control policies of any non-Texan big city in the country, mostly due to gun-friendly state law. And famously, El Paso sits just over the Rio Grande from one of the most violent cities in the western hemisphere, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, home to a staggering 2,500 homicides in the last 18 months alone. A city of illegal immigrants with easy access to guns, just across the river from a metropolis ripped apart by brutal drug war violence. Should be a bloodbath, right? Here's the surprise: There were just 18 murders in El Paso last year, in a city of 736,000 people. To compare, Baltimore, with 637,000 residents, had 234 killings. In fact, since the beginning of 2008, there were nearly as many El Pasoans murdered while visiting Juarez (20) than there were murdered in their home town (23). El Paso is among the safest big cities in America. For the better part of the last decade, only Honolulu has had a lower violent crime rate (El Paso slipped to third last year, behind New York). Men's Health magazine recently ranked El Paso the second "happiest" city in America, right after Laredo, Texas—another border town, where the Hispanic population is approaching 95 percent. So how has this city of poor immigrants become such an anomaly? Actually, it may not be an anomaly at all. Many criminologists say El Paso isn't safe despite its high proportion of immigrants, it's safe because of them. "If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely in one of the country's safer cities. San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country." If you regularly listen to talk radio, or get your crime news from anti-immigration pundits, all of this may come as a surprise. But it's not to many of those who study crime for a living. As the national immigration debate heated up in 2007, dozens of academics who specialize in the issue sent a letter (pdf) to then President George W. Bush and congressional leaders with the following point: Numerous studies by independent researchers and government commissions over the past 100 years repeatedly and consistently have found that, in fact, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes or to be behind bars than are the native-born. This is true for the nation as a whole, as well as for cities with large immigrant populations such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Miami, and cities along the U.S.-Mexico border such as San Diego and El Paso. One of the signatories was Rubén G. Rumbaut, a sociologist who studies immigration at the University of California, Irvine. Rumbaut recently presented a paper on immigration and crime to a Washington, D.C. conference sponsored by the Police Foundation. Rumbaut writes via email, "The evidence points overwhelmingly to the same conclusion: Rates of crime and conviction for undocumented immigrants are far below those for the native born, and that is especially the case for violent crimes, including murder." Opponents of illegal immigration usually do little more than cite andecdotes attempting to link illegal immigration to violent crime. When they do try to use statistics, they come up short. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), for example, has perpetuated the popular myth that illegal immigrants murder 12 Americans per day, and kill another 13 by driving drunk. King says his figures come from a Government Accountability Office study he requested, which found that about 27 percent of inmates in the federal prison system are non-citizens. Colorado Media Matters looked into King's claim, and found his methodology lacking. King appears to have conjured his talking point by simply multiplying the annual number of murders and DWI fatalities in America by 27 percent. Of course, the GAO report only looked at federal prisons, not the state prisons and local jails where most convicted murderers and DWI offenders are kept. The Bureau of Justice Statistics puts the number of non-citizens (including legal immigrants) in state, local, and federal prisons and jails at about 6.4 percent (pdf). Of course, even that doesn't mean that non-citizens account for 6.4 percent of murders and DWI fatalities, only 6.4 percent of the overall inmate population. What's happening with Latinos is true of most immigrant groups throughout U.S. history. "Overall, immigrants have a stake in this country, and they recognize it," Northeastern University's Levin says. "They're really an exceptional sort of American. They come here having left their family and friends back home. They come at some cost to themselves in terms of security and social relationships. They are extremely success-oriented, and adjust very well to the competitive circumstances in the United States." Economists Kristin Butcher and Anne Morrison Piehl argue that the very process of migration tends to select for people with a low potential for criminality. Despite the high profile of polemicists such as Lou Dobbs and Michael Savage, America has been mostly welcoming to this latest immigration wave. You don't see "Latinos Need Not Apply" or "No Mexicans" signs posted on public buildings the way you did with the Italians and the Irish, two groups who actually were disproportionately likely to turn to crime. The implication makes sense: An immigrant group's propensity for criminality may be partly determined by how they're received in their new country. "Look at Arab-Americans in the Midwest, especially in the Detroit area," Levin says. "The U.S. and Canada have traditionally been very willing to welcome and integrate them. They're a success story, with high average incomes and very little crime. That's not the case in Europe. Countries like France and Germany are openly hostile to Arabs. They marginalize them. And they've seen waves of crime and rioting." El Paso may be a concentrated affirmation of that theory. In 2007 the Washington Post reported on city leaders' wariness of anti-immigration policies coming out of Washington. The city went to court (and lost) in an effort to prevent construction of the border fence within its boundaries, and local officials have resisted federal efforts to enlist local police for immigration enforcement, arguing that it would make illegals less likely to cooperate with police. "Most people in Washington really don't understand life on the border," El Paso Mayor John Cook told the Post. "They don't understand our philosophy here that the border joins us together, it doesn't separate us." Other mayors could learn something from Cook. El Paso's embrace of its immigrants might be a big reason why the low-income border town has remained one of the safest places in the country. ============= Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mnealtx 0 #72 August 26, 2010 2009 isn't 2010. There's a lot more violence associated with the cartels over last year.Mike I love you, Shannon and Jim. POPS 9708 , SCR 14706 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lucky... 0 #73 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteQuote Could a state "declare war" or "wage war" using these SDFs under the US Constitution? Thats what started this thread. Go back and read the entire first post. OK, dude. I was trying to answer your question in a reasonable way, but I guess that didn't work. So here's a new answer. Sure, state militias have the right to wage war. Why don't you start one up and lead the charge over the border into Juarez? Let me know how it goes. Educated, informed people like you will have no luck appealing to those who make knee-jerk reactions to issues; people who don't read or research. I come here in part to learn, I was unaware of the info you posted, it cleared up the issue and yet others just want to build the argument from the top-down, starting with how they want it to turn out and trying to build a case that caters to that vs learn the fundamentals and build the case bottom-up. This same poster thought it was Obama's fault for a Texas fed judge striking down stem cell funding; the judge was of course appointed by Reagan. Somehow that's Obama's fault to this poster. Don't argue with those who refuse to listen to reality. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rhaig 0 #74 August 26, 2010 QuoteIf Mexican troops were amassing that would sweep in and plant a flag then yes. It could go to war. I don't see that going on now. what about former Mexican military with special forces training in organized units on the other side of the border moving in vehicle convoys protecting cargo with automatic weapons fire as it moves across the border? (yes, I think it would be silly, but I'm pointing out the very slight, although important, semantic difference between my described situation and "Mexican troops")-- Rob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rhaig 0 #75 August 26, 2010 QuoteQuoteI think you'll find that despite what is written in the Constitution, states' rights are pretty close to nill and have been for a while. As they should be. so you would support repealing the 10th amendment? How about dissolving the state lines all together? become one large territory?? become a true democracy maybe? toss away this republic we have... let's go with majority rule eh?-- Rob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
