RE: 'Illegal immigrant' is a screwed up tautology
that is why i refer to them as immigration criminals. they are immigrants and they are guilty of a crime by being here. 100% of people who crossed the border illegally are criminals, crossing the border was their crime. why are we trying to act like words don't mean what they mean? is it to assuage our guilt? for what? is it to not hurt the feelings of people we owe nothing to? one of two things needs to happen. stop all immigration crime or stop all welfare. now. we have been invaded. mass immigration, starvation and disease are three of the most effective weapons of war that are rarely discussed. i would recommend looking into why Rome actually collapsed. there are many parallels to what is happening to the west today. your ad homonym attacks are not reason. you accuse the people that you have chosen as your opponents of lacking critical thinking, then call them bad, sneaky, dumb, incoherent, tribalists, racists, and xenophobes. you present absolutely no proof of any of it. these are all just baseless assertions. all of your conclusions are based on nothing, no one who does not respect the law, when entering the country can be expected to be the kind of person that will constitute a decent, trustworthy, fellow American.
You make an interesting point here having to do with the negative effects of rapid immigration overburdening the welfare system and potentially endangering the civilizational stability of the region. I don't think the risk is as severe as you do, but I can respect that this is a non-circular argument for (some level of) border control.
Nonetheless, in the absence of due consideration for alternatives, your reaction comes across as disproportionate. You can protest at the possibility of being labeled a racist or an idiot or whatever, but it still leaves me scratching my head as to what else it might be.
In the US, if someone commits a crime, we have a spectrum of responses based on the severity. If the crime is severe (such as murder), they might go to jail for the rest of their life. If it is mild (such as speeding), it may be weakly enforced, and the punishment if caught may be a small fine.
Even if your point stands regarding mass immigration being a hazard at the national level, at the individual level, the harm arising from any given case of non-authorized immigration seems to be very mild. Particularly for people who come in order to be gainfully employed. If they were to have documentation such that they would pay taxes, the burden of the welfare system could be offset accordingly. A reasonable and proportionate response in my book would be to say that if someone does not obtain proper authorization before entering, they have to pay a higher tax on everything they earn.
I think this is generally not true when the law is seen to be an unimportant or unjust one. People who speed on the freeway are just as trustworthy in their everyday dealings as people who don't. In fact, people who consistently drive slower than traffic are probably less to be trusted because their behavior endangers lives.
Crossing a border without obtaining governmental permission seems to me in the same category as speeding. Are speeders better described as 'traffic criminals'? It's factual, but is it a good description? I think not. The main consequence of using that label would be a dilution effect, i.e. people being more skeptical that 'criminal' is such a bad thing to be.
Since this is Steemit, which loves Cannabis: Are Marijuana users 'herb criminals'? How about people who live in states where it's legal, while the federal government says it's illegal?
I think we all know that something being 'illegal' is a poor indicator of how bad it is.
so logic really isn't your strong suit then. trying to overwhelm people with word salad still is not logic. please, i implore you, learn how to think. i'm out.
Can you be more specific about what prompted this response?
Pretty sure I didn't do that. Word salad is stringing unrelated words together incoherently. My response was wordy, but coherent.
If you were going to give up this easily, you shouldn't have commented.
i've already been clear, calling people names is not argument and i can't enjoy reasonable discussion with someone who doesn't know what words mean. i'm not giving up out of frustration or loss. i am ceasing to waste both of our time. the guilt attempt was cute but i've seen that too many times to fall for it. the trivium method and quadrivium would be an excellent start. i wish you well. you seem genuine in your desire, at least. good luck. also, be wary of telling people what they should and shouldn't do. control is an addiction, of the worst kind.