[hrothgar]

awm, on 2015-August-23, 12:48, said:

I don't understand this hostility to immigrants.

I think that the current silliness around immigrants is a conflux of a couple different trends

1. Increased economic pressure on the lower and middle classes
2. Rapid changes involving multiculturalism

I'm not going to deal extensively with the relationship between economic prospects and hostility towards immigrants. (Its pretty well documented). I would like to note that the stress points around multiculturalism are cropping up in a lot of disparate areas.

The so-called Gamergate controversy is one obvious example
This year's Hugo awards kerfuffle is another

this is just one of those things that we're going to need to work through as a society

[kenberg]

I agree with most but not all of what Adam says. Instead of nibbling at small issues I want to single out his comment on education. He speaks of making it more affordable and I agree, but that suggests to me he is speaking of higher education. The problem is much earlier.

There was a recent piece about Ferguson on the PBS Newshour (airing just before the one year anniversary of Michael Brown's death). It was a real puff piece about how wonderful things are going in Ferguson but it did mention the school system which apparently lacks accreditation. It mentioned that for a while the students were going to an accredited, and mostly white, nearby district. Apparently that did not work out but the reasons were not explored. I can guess. You take a ten or twelve year old kid who has been going to a crummy school get him over to a distant school where he knows no one and say "here's your chance, kid". Yes, except his classmates have been going for several years to a good school and are a couple of years, or more, ahead of him in learning. So they can keep him in the grade appropriate for his age, where he has no chance of keeping up, or they can stick him back a couple of grades where he is twice the size of everyone else. Add in racial tensions and class tensions and hey, you say this didn't work out?

I can think of nothing more important than making sure every child has an opportunity to get a decent start in life at a decent school. OK, we also have to make sure they eat, got that, and have some place to live. But what can we expect for the future if the schools are hopeless? Not everyone will learn. Some won't, some can't, but almost everyone can and will learn something. With help and guidance some will learn quite a bit. It's a way out, and maybe the only way out, of an awful situation.


I don't see how anyone, conservative, liberal, whatever, cannot see that solving the school issue is essential. Not easy, I get that. Still it is essential.

[mikeh]

kenberg, on 2015-August-23, 15:40, said:

I agree with most but not all of what Adam says. Instead of nibbling at small issues I want to single out his comment on education. He speaks of making it more affordable and I agree, but that suggests to me he is speaking of higher education. The problem is much earlier.

There was a recent piece about Ferguson on the PBS Newshour (airing just before the one year anniversary of Michael Brown's death). It was a real puff piece about how wonderful things are going in Ferguson but it did mention the school system which apparently lacks accreditation. It mentioned that for a while the students were going to an accredited, and mostly white, nearby district. Apparently that did not work out but the reasons were not explored. I can guess. You take a ten or twelve year old kid who has been going to a crummy school get him over to a distant school where he knows no one and say "here's your chance, kid". Yes, except his classmates have been going for several years to a good school and are a couple of years, or more, ahead of him in learning. So they can keep him in the grade appropriate for his age, where he has no chance of keeping up, or they can stick him back a couple of grades where he is twice the size of everyone else. Add in racial tensions and class tensions and hey, you say this didn't work out?

I can think of nothing more important than making sure every child has an opportunity to get a decent start in life at a decent school. OK, we also have to make sure they eat, got that, and have some place to live. But what can we expect for the future if the schools are hopeless? Not everyone will learn. Some won't, some can't, but almost everyone can and will learn something. With help and guidance some will learn quite a bit. It's a way out, and maybe the only way out, of an awful situation.


I don't see how anyone, conservative, liberal, whatever, cannot see that solving the school issue is essential. Not easy, I get that. Still it is essential.

You forget. It is a basic premise of US conservative thinking that one gets the socio-economic background you deserve. You have parents who work minimum wage? Of a father who has deserted the home? Tough. If you are a decent, deserving human, you will overcome all of this. It says so right in your constitution....or is it the bill of rights? Everyone is created equal, and that means that no-one deserves a government hand-out.

That's why Republicans cut State assistance to and financial support of universities and colleges....if your parents can't make enough money to put you through school, well then you don't deserve to go to school. Unfortunately, we have a major political party here whose leader, I believe, fantasizes about being a US Republican

Meanwhile, invest in companies that run private prisons, and invest in companies that provide armed security to gated communities......these will be growth industries for as long as Republicans win elections.

[kenberg]

I hope there is some middle way. Two beliefs:

1. Anyone who cannot recall with gratitude some help he has received along the way has a serious problem with his memory.
2. All the help in the world is useless unless the person being helped is prepared to make some good decisions and carry them out.

I suppose belief 1 is mostly associated with liberals and belief 2 is mostly associated with conservatives. It is actually possible to hold both beliefs simultaneously without suffering a psychotic break.

[gwnn]

gwnn, on 2015-August-18, 03:56, said:

Odds of 11.0-12.0 seem ridiculously high (the number 11 is too big, what's the expression then?) to me. I might bet on Trump with the intention of selling my bet later after a few other jokers drop out. I might double my money unless Jeb somehow gains some traction. But yea I'm not this betting godfather to go down that road. Somehow gaining money on Trump's popularity seems dirty to me.

Odds down to 6.6 on betfair.com. True, the market is small, but I could have almost doubled a small amount of money in less than a week.

[billw55]

Regarding birthright citizenship, I am curious about one thing. If it were removed, what will the substitute definition of citizenship be? Or more directly - what would make me a citizen? "Child of citizens" isn't good enough, that just shifts the question to my parents, and so on.

As I understand, many nations do not have birthright citizenship. What then makes one a citizen of those nations?

[Trinidad]

billw55, on 2015-August-24, 06:59, said:

Regarding birthright citizenship, I am curious about one thing. If it were removed, what will the substitute definition of citizenship be? Or more directly - what would make me a citizen? "Child of citizens" isn't good enough, that just shifts the question to my parents, and so on.

As I understand, many nations do not have birthright citizenship. What then makes one a citizen of those nations?

I am Dutch (from the Netherlands). My wife is Finnish. We met in the USA where we got married. Our kids were born when we lived in Sweden. They have dual citizenship: Dutch and Finnish. By coincidence (because my Finnish wife found the perfect job there), we moved to the Netherlands when the children were in their preschool age.

When we were in Sweden, I always felt that my kids were Swedish: they spoke fluent Swedish (well for preschool kids), they lived Swedish, ate Swedish, did Swedish, had Swedish friends, and no one could notice that they weren't Swedish. They didn't speak Dutch or Finnish, didn't know any of the Dutch or Finnish customs. They didn't have anything with those two countries (other than that their grandparents lived there) and yet they had that nationality.

Now, the kids are in high school in the Netherlands. They are as Dutch as can be. They don't know how to speak Swedish anymore (though there pronunciation is still perfect) and don't have a clue what Swedes do on May 1st, Easter or Lucia. For them, hockey is a game played on Astro turf...

So, they are as Dutch as can be, and they have Dutch citizenship! But the reason for their Dutch citizenship is that their father (who would have been happy to stay in Sweden) happened to be Dutch, not because they "walk like a Dutch and quack like a Dutch" (or whatever the saying was).

Rik

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2015-August-23, 15:40, said:

I agree with most but not all of what Adam says. Instead of nibbling at small issues I want to single out his comment on education. He speaks of making it more affordable and I agree, but that suggests to me he is speaking of higher education. The problem is much earlier.

There was a recent piece about Ferguson on the PBS Newshour (airing just before the one year anniversary of Michael Brown's death). It was a real puff piece about how wonderful things are going in Ferguson but it did mention the school system which apparently lacks accreditation. It mentioned that for a while the students were going to an accredited, and mostly white, nearby district. Apparently that did not work out but the reasons were not explored. I can guess. You take a ten or twelve year old kid who has been going to a crummy school get him over to a distant school where he knows no one and say "here's your chance, kid". Yes, except his classmates have been going for several years to a good school and are a couple of years, or more, ahead of him in learning. So they can keep him in the grade appropriate for his age, where he has no chance of keeping up, or they can stick him back a couple of grades where he is twice the size of everyone else. Add in racial tensions and class tensions and hey, you say this didn't work out?

I can think of nothing more important than making sure every child has an opportunity to get a decent start in life at a decent school. OK, we also have to make sure they eat, got that, and have some place to live. But what can we expect for the future if the schools are hopeless? Not everyone will learn. Some won't, some can't, but almost everyone can and will learn something. With help and guidance some will learn quite a bit. It's a way out, and maybe the only way out, of an awful situation.


I don't see how anyone, conservative, liberal, whatever, cannot see that solving the school issue is essential. Not easy, I get that. Still it is essential.

I cannot agree more. M brother is 5 years older than me and when he was in high school the school offered Latin I and II, which he took. When I started in the same school, Latin was no longer offered. My brother became a Ph.D.; I became a bridge bum. Correlation? Causation? I'll have to ask my brother.

[gwnn]

billw55, on 2015-August-24, 06:59, said:

Regarding birthright citizenship, I am curious about one thing. If it were removed, what will the substitute definition of citizenship be? Or more directly - what would make me a citizen? "Child of citizens" isn't good enough, that just shifts the question to my parents, and so on.

As I understand, many nations do not have birthright citizenship. What then makes one a citizen of those nations?

It's actually pretty hard to get Dutch citizenship!

http://www.dutchnews...thor_fails_dut/

Quote

Prize-winning author fails Dutch integration test

(snipped by gwnn)
‘There were no questions about Van Gogh, the Nightwatch, windmills, the canals or Sint Maarten but questions such as ‘Mo lives on social security and wants to take his son to a crèche. Who has to pay?’, Al Galidi told the paper.

[billw55]

gwnn, on 2015-August-24, 07:47, said:

It's actually pretty hard to get Dutch citizenship!

http://www.dutchnews...thor_fails_dut/

So, has every Dutch citizen taken such a test? Is it required in order be a citizen? Or for other privileges of citizenship, such as voting, driver license, etc?

[mike777]

billw55, on 2015-August-24, 08:11, said:

So, has every Dutch citizen taken such a test? Is it required in order be a citizen? Or for other privileges of citizenship, such as voting, driver license, etc?

https://en.wikipedia...nationality_law


Bill it seems the rules change and change pretty often. see above link

-----


btw I kinda like Bernie's idea for free College. I hope it also includes, room and board and expenses. I hope it will not punish students who do poorly or lack some discipline
I also love the idea about being able to borrow money for school and not having to pay it back.

[billw55]

Hmm, wikipedia says: "A person born on or after 1 January 1985 to a Dutch father or mother is automatically a Dutch subject at birth. It is irrelevant where the child is born." But how do they determine that the parent is Dutch?

[gwnn]

billw55, on 2015-August-24, 09:05, said:

Hmm, wikipedia says: "A person born on or after 1 January 1985 to a Dutch father or mother is automatically a Dutch subject at birth. It is irrelevant where the child is born." But how do they determine that the parent is Dutch?

That's just standard "grandfathered" terminology. Whoever is a citizen will remain a citizen even if the requirements change in the future. I'm not sure what is unclear about this.

But if you read that article, you'll see that in normal cases, the children of current Dutch parents will be Dutch citizens.

My main point in that post was that it's funny that an award-winning writer failed the test since it was such a weird one.

[mike777]

gwnn, on 2015-August-24, 09:08, said:

That's just standard "grandfathered" terminology. Whoever is a citizen will remain a citizen even if the requirements change in the future. I'm not sure what is unclear about this.

But if you read that article, you'll see that in normal cases, the children of current Dutch parents will be Dutch citizens.

My main point in that post was that it's funny that an award-winning writer failed the test since it was such a weird one.

I think Bill is asking how do you know the parent is a citizen and not an illegal?

What proof do you need or can anyone just lie and get away with it.

I note there is a form to fill out, but you can lie on the form. Who is ever going to check up?

I mean if you have 15 million illegals and they all have babies or half do....how do you check the form?

http://www.governmen...irth-of-a-child

[gwnn]

mike777, on 2015-August-24, 09:19, said:

I think Bill is asking how do you know the parent is a citizen and not an illegal?

What proof do you need or can anyone just lie and get away with it.

I note there is a form to fill out, but you can lie on the form. Who is ever going to check up?

I mean if you have 15 million illegals and they all have babies or half do....how do you check the form?

http://www.governmen...irth-of-a-child

Umm... There are birth certificates and national ID's in all European countries. There are also databases with the names and data of citizens. I'm sure you can trick the system (fake your birth certificate and hack into the database) but it doesn't seem easy to me. Photo ID's are ubiquitous in Europe.

[gwnn]

Or are we talking about a random child born outside of a hospital and left on the street? Am I missing the point as usual? Bill seemed to talk about the circularity of birthright citizenship, which is just averted if you shrug and say that you are grandfathered in. I don't know.

[mike777]

gwnn, on 2015-August-24, 09:31, said:

Umm... There are birth certificates and national ID's in all European countries. There are also databases with the names and data of citizens. I'm sure you can trick the system (fake your birth certificate and hack into the database) but it doesn't seem easy to me. Photo ID's are ubiquitous in Europe.

Ahh here in the USA there is no such database to crosscheck. Also this birth registration is done by the states not central govt, thus the issue.

In fact America thinks of this database as evil....1984 stuff...evil, scary stuff, thus the issue here. The idea of the big brother having a database of info on all of us to check up on stuff such as this is scary stuff in the uSA.

Keep in mind here in the USA we tend to NOT trust the government...
---

edit btw fake birth certificates are a big business here...not really that hard to get. Common for college kids to have fake ID's.

[billw55]

gwnn, on 2015-August-24, 09:31, said:

Umm... There are birth certificates and national ID's in all European countries. There are also databases with the names and data of citizens. I'm sure you can trick the system (fake your birth certificate and hack into the database) but it doesn't seem easy to me. Photo ID's are ubiquitous in Europe.

OK, this is progress. Perhaps we can say that the definition of a Dutch citizen is (a) someone listed in an accepted citizenship database, or (b) the child of someone listed in such a database. Presumably such a child will soon be listed in the database as well.

How one got listed in the database is, perhaps, irrelevant. Might I be able to bribe a Dutch IT worker to add my name? Presumably when found out, my name would be removed. Thence the question, for what reasons can names be removed, i.e. citizenship revoked?

Also Gwnn, I am not picking on the Dutch in particular. This was just the first example that came up when I asked a generalized question. No offense intended. I only find it interesting that defining a citizen does not seem to be an easy thing to do.

[barmar]

hrothgar, on 2015-August-23, 07:31, said:

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the over whelming majority of illegal immigrants enter the US legally and then overstay their visas. Building a wall is at best a distraction and at worst and amazing waste of resources.

Remember the speech he gave a few months ago where he talked about the problem with immigration being the "criminals, drug dealers, rapists"? I suspecct he thinks that most of these didn't enter legally, so the wall might be a good way to stop them. Who knows, this might even be true.

Of course, the problem was actually his premise that so many illegal immigrants are such dangerous criminals. After he made that speech, it was widely refuted, it's just a reflection of the xenophobia that has become common in conservative America.

I also strongly disagree that immigration is the most serious problem that the politicians are making it out to be. I think they focus on it because it's something tractable -- a proposal like "build a wall" seems like something we could actually do in the short term that would help (I heard a few days ago that one of the countries in the middle east is now doing that to keep out refugees from a neighboring country -- I don't recall which they are). The really important problems are much harder to address: climate change, radical fundamentalism, income inequality, race relations.

[gwnn]

billw55, on 2015-August-24, 09:54, said:

OK, this is progress. Perhaps we can say that the definition of a Dutch citizen is (a) someone listed in an accepted citizenship database, or (b) the child of someone listed in such a database. Presumably such a child will soon be listed in the database as well.

How one got listed in the database is, perhaps, irrelevant. Might I be able to bribe a Dutch IT worker to add my name? Presumably when found out, my name would be removed. Thence the question, for what reasons can names be removed, i.e. citizenship revoked?

Also Gwnn, I am not picking on the Dutch in particular. This was just the first example that came up when I asked a generalized question. No offense intended. I only find it interesting that defining a citizen does not seem to be an easy thing to do.

I wasn't offended. Just saying that this isn't such a huge issue as you make it out to be. I'm still a bit puzzled tbh.