Immigration Reform in U.S.

[Donk]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Hmmm, another topic that the decision to give corporations the same rights as people may have bad results.
I would first suggest a court challenge that would allow the high court to revisit that decision and maybe, reverse it.
Corporations should not be able to lobby, period (in my opinion).
The CEO, line worker, personal assistants, managers, etc can all voice their opinions as individuals.

In theory, lobbying is simply narrowly-targeted advertising. You can't prevent a corporation from advertising.

Bribery though...

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Buffy

I don't think its possible--or even a really good idea--to get rid of lobbyists, but it sure would be nice to be sure you know where the money is coming from!

Yeah, having the money trail is good if only to inform people who to vote for next time. (I voted green in 08 because my wife looked up everyone's campaign contributions.) But that still doesn't solve the problem of getting government to enforce their own laws. Comes down to matters of consistency among the laws passed so that we aren't shooting ourselves in the foot, and budget issues of course. Simply put, prioritizing issues and being fiscally responsible should be prerequisite for anything that gets voted on before it gets voted on. But then again, enforced by who? The media?

[Southtown]

Originally Posted by Donk

[lobbying is] Bribery though...

Word.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Hmmm, another topic that the decision to give corporations the same rights as people may have bad results.

I agree with this philosophy for many reasons, but not for what you conclude from it:

Originally Posted by Zythryn

Corporations should not be able to lobby, period (in my opinion).
The CEO, line worker, personal assistants, managers, etc can all voice their opinions as individuals.

The problem is that the Rich Folk can afford--as individuals--a lot more free speech than Bob-Behind-The-Counter-At-McDonalds. If he wants to spend all his money on billboards or hanging out in Congresscritter's office lobbies or getting the permits to use a sixteen cabinet, four head Marshall stack hooked up to a microphone in front of the Capitol building.

I'm all for private groups providing groups of individuals greater power to pool their funds to exercise their free speech, but what I really detest is the increasing trend toward Astroturfing, wherein people who are lobbying hide the reasons why they are advocating policies in order to deceive others into supporting positions that are detrimental to their own self-interest.

And to wind back to the thread topic, this means that if a lobbyist against immigration is getting money from the KKK to keep the people of color out, or from Corporate Farmers to ensure that there's enforcement of shipping people back, but with no sanctions on the businesses who hire illegals, then I wanna know about it.

To answer the question I posed to Cedars above, the reason that none of the current laws are enforced and that new laws that are needed aren't legislated, and why there's no money to pay the unemployed to ship the illegals back (hopefully at minimum wage!) is because of that latter group who make sure that the politicians who rail against "aliens" still do everything else necessary to make sure that the status quo is maintained: occasional raids and pointless "walls on the border" for PR to make it appear that something is happening, while making sure that no laws are passed to punish the employers or force them to pay minimum wages or benefits.

Until *that* problem is solved, no, it's not "easy" to solve the problems posed by illegal immigration in the US.

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers,
Buffy