Grrr...why weren't these people immediately made US Citizens?

[Elden]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph


Neither east bloc state forbade religion, not even the USSR, although the restrictions to the churches there may have been more severe than elsewhere. In East Germany, where I grew up, we had pretty strong Evangelic and Catholic communities, or where else do you think came all the priests from, who led the peaceful revolution in 89/90?

Some of the church leaders whined about the "harsh restriction" of the churches though, seeing that less and less people went to the churches. After the reunification, they shut up very quick, seeing that the same shift towards atheism took place in West Germany too. It's a matter of education, I guess, not ideology.

But didn't Russia forbid religion in Russia itself?

[Harovan]

No, it was restricted and officially unliked, but not forbidden. Russians are very religious people, especially the rural population. Lots of crosses and icons (very beautiful ones!). You can't take away the religion from these people. The only thing you can do, is not to support it.

Btw, the "Metropolit of Moscow and the whole Russia" (the Orthodoxal version of the Pope) all the time lived in Moscow.

[Elden]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
No, it was restricted and officially unliked, but not forbidden. Russians are very religious people, especially the rural population. Lots of crosses and icons (very beautiful ones!). You can't take away the religion from these people. The only thing you can do, is not to support it.

Btw, the "Metropolit of Moscow and the whole Russia" (the Orthodoxal version of the Pope) all the time lived in Moscow.

Oh, thanks for the historical clarification. Very surprising

[RGBVideo]

at this thread.

[Sava]

America is quite silly. We hate Cuba! It's the land of Communism! Oppression! And led by a BAD BAD MAN! We want FREEDOM for the CUBAN PEOPLE! Because we are the protectors and spreaders of FREEDOM! But if they risk their life to come to our free state... HELL NO!! GO BACK TO CUBA YOU DAMN IMMIGRANTS! Frankly, I think these Cubans risking their lives to come to the US appreciate such freedoms much more than most Americans who take their freedom for granted.

[Arrian]

You gotta admit, this was creative as hell - and the damn thing worked!

I say we keep 'em. The Pentagon could prolly use those guys.

-Arrian

[GePap]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Of course, if they were fleeing the Batista regime, you'd welcome them with open arms. Or are you just against all refugees?

So how many of the cubans who get on these boats claim refugee status? Oh, but wait, if yu claim to be a political refugee you can;t very well immidately get on track to be a citizen....

Give me a break. political repression in Cuba is worse than in Haiti, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burma, China, Lybia, so forth and so on, yet the only people in the world who get a free greencard if they make it to american shores (illegally) are the Cubans. And not many of them even try to prove themselves political refugees (I doubt most could ever prove it..NO, living in a dictatorship does not make you instantly a refugee, If so, Raul castro could get a rickety boat, make it to Maimi, become a permanent resident, then just go to mexico and back to Cuba...but I am sure he suffers a lot back home in Cuba...)

Those people saying how these Cubans should get in: Do all immigrants from lands with worse eocnomies than the US or places that are not democracies deserve an immidiate Green Card upon illgaly making it to the US? If NOT, why are the Cuabn's special?

[Arrian]

Those people saying how these Cubans should get in: Do all immigrants from lands with worse eocnomies than the US or places that are not democracies deserve an immidiate Green Card upon illgaly making it to the US?

If they manage to turn a 1951 chevy pickup into a functioning boat capable of 8mph through the Carribean Sea? Yes!

The fact that a 52 yr-old chevy was still running is amazing in its own right.

-Arrian

[DRoseDARs]

Those people saying how these Cubans should get in: Do all immigrants from lands with worse economies than the US or places that are not democracies deserve an immidiate Green Card upon illegally making it to the US? If NOT, why are the Cuban's special?

If they manage to turn a 1951 chevy pickup into a functioning boat capable of 8mph through the Carribean Sea? Yes!

The fact that a 52 yr-old chevy was still running is amazing in its own right.

Asked, answered.

GeGap, that is the point I'm trying to drive home (pardon the pun). This is one of those case-by-case -type moments were you look at just the individual case to determine its outcome, not a general overview of like cases. I don't approve of illegal immigration, but I'm not willing to allow 12 very clever immigrants be sent back to their deaths in Cuba. Hell, Castro will probably dispatch them each personally with his favorite Uzi. In a more general stroke, illegal immigrants are deperate people: they are fleeing one place to another they believe they can find hope. Whatever their reasons, they should be offered some comfort before making a final decision on their status. If they floated across 90 miles of open water, stumbled blindly through the dark cold desert, or braved the rigors of illegal trafficing in an unventilated semi trailor...it should be remembered that they are Humans looking for a better life who have risked everything to do so. There is a reason they don't emmigrate in masses to Belize, Guatemala, Panama, Coast Rica, the Bahamas, Mexico etc.

The US should certainly tighten its borders, but for the people that survive the trip they should atleast get some consideration. Many USAmericans are pompous in their claims that "America is SO great and wealthy and advanced and better than everyone else because we're Americans" and yet are completely perplexed, even outraged, when people (who are not "Americans" and therefore dirty) try desperately to reach our soil. We claim to be the land of the free, the land of opportunity and all that jazz; so why all the anger towards illegal immigrants? As for illegal immigrants coming from much further away, same feelings apply. They're desperate, they seek USAmerican freedom, they brave very unsafe and dangerous conditions, and cross seemingly impenetrable border defences ( ) to get here. If they make it, good for them. Doesn't necessarily mean they'll become citizens, but atleast they won't be shone the door with little more than a cold, indifferent shrug of the shoulders.



They shouldn't be turned away so callously...I'm suprised you can't smell the hipocracy, GeGap. It stinks, but scuttling that 1951 Chevy and returning the 12 to the land of their pending visit to the firing squad isn't the way to fix it.



Slightly to the side, and again tongue-in-check, Reno holds an event called Hot August Nights during the month of...well, August. It's basically a month long classic auto show and related events. Had those 12 and their 1951 Chevy amphibipickup made it to US soil, they EASILY could have been included in next month's events. With Reno's large Hispanic population, they could have certainly found people willing to give them shelter, and event goers would have showered them with praise for ingenuity. They probably would have earned themselves monetary rewards that would have made it easier for them to assimilate into USAmerican society. God, the fulness of the decision to turn them away...

[GePap]

The likelyhood that they will be gunned down in Cuba is utterly negligable (which is why 3 men who hijacked a ferry getting sentenced to death caused a huge uproar: if killing in Cuba was so common, why would anyone have cared?)

No, I do not think making a car float makes you special in any way, and no, I do not think it deserves for instant green card status.

The Cubans risk the 90 miles bacause they KNOW they have a free greencard waiting just if they make it: I do not want tougher border enforcement. I myself am an immigrant, and one that came form a "terrible tyranny", if I go by the logic that 5 months after I immigrated to the US my country was "liberated" by the US army. And what I can say, as far as that goes, is that most people are apolitical: they live thier lives and keep out of politics (that is true in dmeocracies as well), so that the most important impetus for immigration is economic, but people leaving one state for better jobs and livelyhoods in other state do not count as refugees. I don;t know what insane image of Cuban you poeple have. It is a dictatorship and poor, but it is not nearly, nor has it ever been, an equal hellhole to many other spots in this hemisphere.

The people of Haiti have seen much worse, not only in thuggish dictatorships, but crushing poverty, poverty much worse than Cubas, and yet if some Haitia gets on a boat and sails 200 miles in por conditions risking thier lives to make it to the US, even if they make it on shore, back to Haiti they go. During the 1980's, when the Guatemalan army was partaking in its campaing of terror against the Indians in which at least 100,000 Indians were slaughtered (probably more than ten times the likely toll of ALL of Castro's victim in a country with less people), if a Guatemalan indian snuck in through jungles into mexico, then travelled the length of Mexico and then made an attempt at the border with the US, and was caught... back to the klling fields for them..


The speical treatment for Cubans is absurd: if they are political refugees, then apply for asylum when you come into custody of US officials. Same rules for everyone.

[DinoDoc]

I have no problems with turning away illegal immigrants en masse but the shear creativeness of that group impressed the hell out of me. I more than likely would have let that group get to land.

[Japher]

extra points if the car still ran

[MrFun]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I have no problems with turning away illegal immigrants en masse but the shear creativeness of that group impressed the hell out of me. I more than likely would have let that group get to land.

So you still have an ounce of heart in you, huh?

[GePap]

I bet right Now Fidel is reading this, and will hire these guys to make an Edsel float, ready to start up right when it lands, and inside will be a crack team of Cuban infiltrators, and Fidel himself, and people will be so mistified by the act, they will wecome them all in with open arms and make Fidel governor of Florida..Yeah...

Give me a ****ing break.

[DinoDoc]

Oh come on! I'd have said the samething if it was a Hatian car-boat.