Tell me about Huckabee

[Dinner]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

There are an awful lot of people, Ramo, who DONT think kicking them out is feasible, or even desirable, but who nonetheless dont think that enforcing the immigration law is a violation of human rights, or that sentiment in favor of doing so is base (misguided, to be sure, but not base) This is true EVEN if we recognize that SOME of the "I love hispanics, its only the illegals im uncomfortable with" rhetoric is not sincere.

I know a friend of mine from Belize married an American woman and it took $12,000 and seven years from start of application process to finally getting his citizenship. If we agree to punish illegals & the companies which hire them then we're going to have to seriously over hall our current immigration system so that doing things the legal way actually becomes feasible for more people who want to come to America.

[Krill]

Summary?

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Krill
Summary?

Huckabee is either a nutjob or he isn't, and Oerdin hates Mormons.

[Krill]

I thought the latter comment was common knowledge?

[Verto]

Originally posted by Oerdin
This is obviously a Christian hit piece on Mormons from the 70's but I'm wondering how much of the claims it makes are factual. I've heard the man god and planet thing from multiple sources but I'd like to hear if the story from the book of Mormon is thought to be literally true or just a tail or something else.

http://www.americanfilms.com/play.cfm?clipid=531

Mormons do believe in plural gods, but do not worship more than 'God', and Jesus Christ. Also, 'God'did not necessarily physically have sex to have billions of physical children as the video says. Rather, they were 'spirit' children who didn't yet have a physical body. This I don't think is too ridiculous when you consider all Christians believe we have a soul, and you could argue endlessly on where or how said soul/spirit would come about.

I didn't watch too much after that, it's a silly video.

I think one of the biggest differences between the Mormons and other Christians is, Mormons tend to have a more 'literal belief', is how I would put it, whereas some Christians view a lot of stories, verses, what have you, as symbolic or metaphoric.


My disclaimer: I think all religions are silly.

[Verto]

Also, God wouldn't necessarily have had physical sex with Mary. Some view the Bible verses as being metaphoric or whatever.

[Verto]

Wow, that is a pretty inaccurate video. I bet you loved it

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by LordShiva
Huckabee is either a nutjob or he isn't, and Oerdin hates Mormons.

Heh, it's always interesting to be hated by people that I've never done anything to. I must admit, the usual "OMG! Teh MoRmonZ r crzy! 2TLY not RoXxors" rhetoric does get tiring after a while.

Regarding this thread, I guess I would sum up my thoughts thusly:

I don't care if Mike Huckabee believes I'm going to hell; I do care if he takes my country there in a handbasket.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by Ramo
What we're talking about is dealing with peoples' economic insecurity by projecting it against a vulnerable scapegoat. It's ugly as hell. The pols who trade in this **** are either not particularly bright or very bad people.

thats right, wages aren't decided by supply and demand. The magical wage faerie handles it.

[Dinner]

I believe the argument closed borders supporters would make is that increased immigration increases the supply of labor and so decreases wages. What these people are forgetting is that the increased employment & economic activity spark economic growth and so increase demand for labor as well.

[Whoha]

No need to go into theory, we can review the previous 40 years to examine the outcome. Specifically: Rising wages, companies spending money to train existing employees, and more capital investment if the economy is supplying jobs at a faster rate then new workers are added to the population, and the opposite if new workers are coming in faster then new jobs are being created.

[Dinner]

You can make a macro observation like that and be factually correct but the reality is any effect is going to vary greatly industry by industry and sector by sector. For instance educated professionals are very unlikely to see any near term impact on their wages because Mexican peasants sneaking across the border aren't very likely to get a job as a structural engineer or a geologist. While the blue colar guy with relatively low level skills like a drywaller or a butcher will see his wages and job prospects majorly effected.

It's not a coincidence that most of the Minuteman protesters I've seen here in San Diego mostly come from east county and mostly work in low skill industries which do face wage & employment competition with low skill immigrant workers. Those people are pissed while the rest of us in noneffected industries think it is great because prices for all sorts of goods and services we buy go down.

The summary is increased competition does help decrease costs and check inflation and that has beneficial effects felt at all sections of the economy while the negative effects on wages are concentrated in a few areas. The moral is don't be the low skill guy.

[Whoha]

For instance educated professionals are very unlikely to see any near term impact on their wages because Mexican peasants sneaking across the border aren't very likely to get a job as a structural engineer or a geologist.

While these guys don't face any direct threat from relatively uneducated workers, their jobs do depend on a fairly healthy rate of business investment in capital which is threatened by businesses having all the labor that they could ever want.

[Dinner]

Naw, we end up with more design work because the lower construction costs, etc, mean more projects become economically feasible and actually get built instead of staying on the drawing board. This is economic growth in action.

[Whoha]

and now that the housing bubble is pretty much over?