The U.S. should not follow Europe’s path
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Michael Ragland
Published: July 10, 2008
Recently the European Union made a legal decision to detain illegal immigrants for up to 18 months before deporting them. There has been criticism of the EU’s new law which will take effect in 2010. It
would be a mistake for the U.S. to take the same path Europe has for historical and political and socio-economic reasons. The U.S. is not Europe when it comes to history and demographics although
there are some similarities. America’s “legal immigrants” and minorities represent much more political, social and economic power than in Europe; illegal labor to big business as well. Europe
is “generally” more nationalistic than the U.S. In terms of democracy, the U.S. has a history of democracy whereas Europe has had several police states or undemocratic regimes. That’s not to say
America hasn’t had its trying moments, such as the genocide of the Native-Americans, slavery, sufferage, civil rights, etc, and it still struggles with these to an extent. But American history, while
intricately linked with European exploration, has its own unique history.
I hope to never see a term of up to 18 months imposed upon those arrested who are found to be illegal aliens in the U.S. First, it would likely be impossible. The U.S. legal, judicial and correctional
systems would likely not be able to take in all those arrested and found to be an illegal alien in the U.S. There are millions in the U.S.
Prince William County’s new anti-illegal immigration law stipulates anybody, irrespective of whether they’re a citizen or not, will have their immigration status checked. What happens to the arrested
individual who is found out to be an illegal alien? It then becomes a federal matter and it’s up to the feds.
Although there has been an increase in criminals deported who are illegal aliens, Congress has yet to come up with comprehensive immigration reform under the Bush Administration. Is the illegal alien to be held (for how long?) in jail or prison until he or she can be deported to whatever country he or she came from? How many illegals are currently in our correctional system serving time for crimes they have committed? Quite a few I imagine. Are they deported after they serve their 30-year sentence?
MICHAEL RAGLAND
Triangle
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( Ragland ) on July 19, 2008 at 10:53 am
Willow 73:
I thought I saw you in Pamplona.
Michael Ragland
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on July 15, 2008 at 11:59 am
Spain is a perfect example of why we should not follow Europe’s path.
Spain has decided to give apes the right of due process. No complaint from the rest of Europe.
The annual “Running of the Fools” in Pamplona is the prelude to another season of torturing & slaughtering hundreds, if not thousands, of bulls.
Again, no complaint from the rest of Europe.
The Spanish call these atrocities, “cultural events”.
I leave it to the reader to decide what this says about Spain.
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Posted by ( Sammy B ) on July 14, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Well Willow, it seems our argument is merely over a semantic issue, because I completely agree with what you said in your 10:10am post.
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Posted by ( Ragland ) on July 14, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Willow 703:
Yes, you are wrong about Manifest Destiny which was tied up intimately with European-American colonialism on the continent. You are aware of what colonialism is and its bloody history? The same with Nationalism of the more extreme sort. A brief definition of Manifest Destiny is:
The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English | Date: 2008
Man·i·fest Des·ti·ny
• n. the 19th-century doctrine or belief that the expansion of the U.S. throughout the American continents was both justified and inevitable.
The Indians were on their own lands and they were killed and peace treaties broken. Indian women and children were raped and/or killed and all the Indian men were almost totally killed. Speaking of realistic you won’t get it from “Dancing with Wolves”; that is pure nonsense. The movies the “Black Robe” comes closer although not about genocide and the book “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee.”
Michael Ragland
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on July 14, 2008 at 10:15 am
Ragland,
I have heard of Manifest Destiny. It has been a while, but I don’t believe that it called for, or required, “deliberate, systematic” destruction of any people.
Correct me, if I’m wrong.
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on July 14, 2008 at 10:10 am
Sammy,
That which has happened to Native Americans in the past, & is still happening to some today, was & is atrocious & a shame.
I may sound callous, but I am merely realistic, I can’t un-spill the blood.
Today, the government owes Native Americans
unknown tens of millions of dollars; the result of past treaties, leases & sales of land. There is, in the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a more worthless bunch of bureaucrats has never existed, which can’t even come up with a
guesstimate.
This bumbling bunch of boobs should immediately be unemployed. The budget for the bureau should be placed in the hands of a panel of Special Masters, the majority being Native Americans; whose soul purpose would be to determine the government’s debt to Native Americans.
That being done, the debt determined & paid, the government’s future relations with Native Americans should be handled by the Department of State.
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Posted by ( Sammy B ) on July 13, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Willow, the crimes against Native Americans may not have been as well-organized and documented by the perpetrators as the crimes of the Nazis, but they are a hideous stain our nation’s history nonetheless. It may have been spread out over decades and different authorities, but no group of people suffers a 98% population reduction without some sort of disaster, either natural or man-made. Perhaps the federal government did not explicitly order all the deaths, but when thousands die in a forced march as a result of “poor planning & lack of financing,” as you so callously put it, or people are killed by the hundreds in ways too horrific for description in a family newspaper, as occurred at the Sand Creek massacre, it reflects at best a horrific failure by that government to train its agents to carry out a delicate mission with humanity. Call the sins of our country against Native Americans whatever you want; they are still a shame for all of us.
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Posted by ( Ragland ) on July 13, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Wilow 73:
Ever heard of Manifest Destiny? It meant millions of Native Americans being killed.
Michael Ragland
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Posted by ( Ragland ) on July 13, 2008 at 4:46 pm
Willow 703:
Yes, there is plenty of documentation of the Holocaust. I’m quite aware of it.
However, there is no general document or order which specifically states Hitler ordered the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe. The Holocaust was improvised although it was clear early on Hitler wanted all the Jews dead. An excellent film to order over the internet about the Holocaust is Claude Lanzmann’s “Shoa”.
We will have to agree to disagree about the Native Americans in the U.S. I state it was genocide; I will try to find “documentation” before this thread is closed.
Michael Ragland
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Posted by ( willow703 ) on July 13, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Ragland,
My Mirriam Webster dictionary defines genocide as: The deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political or cultural group.
As for that discipline called “comparative genocides”, genocide may be for racial, political, cultural, and, I might add, religious reasons but, I see nothing to compare other than the reasons; and they are all wrong.
I have yet to see any proof that the decline in the Native American population was the result of “deliberate” and “systematic” destruction by any government or group of citizens.
Study the Holocaust and you will find that it was the result of the “deliberate” and “systematic” policies and actions of the government of Germany under Adolf Hitler. The Holocaust gave birth to the word genocide.
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