Re: Fuck the immigrants!

On Sat, 08 Nov 2003 16:04:45 -0800, Andrew DeFaria wrote:
>It's not that I "so cherish" it any more than you have such disdain for 
>it. I just think that laws should be enforced. What do you think?

I think that laws should get enforced, or otherwise changed. I have
stated so multiple times. (And this will be the last time...)


>Yes I have broken the law. I am a criminal. I have paid the price and 
>suffered the consequences as proscribed by the law that I violated. 

Probably not all the time, only when you got caught. And I'm pretty
sure that the next time you break the law, you'll hope you won't get
caught, and don't turn yourself in. (In this respect, I just assume
that you are not different from me or anybody else I know. :)

How does that stack up with your opinion that all laws should get
always enforced? Are there not situations where you hope that a
certain law would not get enforced, at least not that one time?


>>> You post saying, effectively, that people break laws all  the time.
>>
>> Is that wrong?
>
>Well, ah, duh, of course it's wrong! That's why it's against the law.

I asked whether my assertion that "effectively, [...] people break
laws all  the time" is wrong. Is it?


>The question that's been ask is whether. Some suggest that they should 
>not be enforced. So then you agree that illegal aliens should be removed?

Removing illegals is one way to enforce this law. There are other
ways. So while I agree that the law should be enforced, the answer to
the "how" is a bit more complex. The question of limited resources for
law enforcement and the most efficient use of these is important in
this context.

(I also think that some parts of the law should be changed, but that's
not really important for the essence of this issue.)


>> In my book, law enforcement is about efficient prevention of illegal 
>> actions
>
>Ah, not really. Law enforcement entails enforcement of the laws. Pretty 
>simple eh? Now prevention is indeed a good thing, but it's not law 
>enforcement.

For me, law enforcement means making sure that the law gets observed.
Is that not what you want? (A dictionary says "compel obedience" for
"enforce", which seems to support my understanding.)

Also in your arguments that followed this phrase, you seem to indicate
that you also see the ulterior motive of law enforcement to be
prevention of violations. You used the term "deterrent", for example.
Deterrent is prevention.

It's actually this idea of deterrent (that is, prevention) that is one
of the two basic pillars of punishment in law enforcement. The other
one is satisfaction, revenge. I don't think that the revenge one is
very helpful or necessary. That's why I look mainly at the prevention
(or deterrent) effect of law enforcement actions.

Of course one could say that we should do everything. But that's not
real -- we wouldn't want to spend all that money, we probably wouldn't
even be able to spend all that would be necessary and still survive on
the rest. So we define how much we want to spend on law enforcement,
and have to decide what exactly we do -- which also means to decide
which of the possible law enforcement actions we don't undertake.

And that decision should, IMO, mostly be taken based on the prevention
efficiency, or in other words, how efficient a certain measure is in
making sure that the law won't get broken again.


>It is not the job of US business to perform enforcement of the law. 

>They have codified that into a law but I believe that that law should 
>not be as such - that the government should be doing that. 

Do you say because you think that a law is wrong, it should not be
enforced? If not, this is not really material -- currently it is a
law, and businesses are required to require proper documentation from
any employee-to-be. (I don't quite see why they shouldn't be required
to do so. They need to file taxes for every employee, so they need to
have every employee's tax identification data. If somebody doesn't
have one, then there's something wrong. Doesn't need a law degree to
know that...)


>All this says is that we currently are failing to enforce the law. The 
>solution is to up it!

That's one solution. I doubt the efficiency of this solution, that's
all. IMO it would take law enforcement resource away from more
efficient measures, and result in more violations of the law. I don't
think there is a way we can find out whether I'm right -- we would
need parallel universes for that.


>Yes let's not target those who have actually broke the law rather let's 
>target those who have money, regardless of whether or not they broke the 
>law. Amazingly circular logic. Troublingly wrong, IMHO.

You know (you wrote it above) that the employers of illegal immigrants
break the law. Why do you say that they didn't break the law? Do you
propose to exempt them from proper law enforcement? If so, why them?

Actually, they usually have set up their operations in a way that they
don't have money. They make sure that all branding is done through a
company not associated with hiring the illegal immigrants, then just
go bankrupt with the business that actually hired them (which works
under contract of the brand owner business) when they get caught. Then
they just open a new business that takes over the same contracts, with
new illegal immigrants... Sounds pretty worthy of serious law
enforcement to me. That's why only financial penalties for the
businesses don't cut it -- they usually don't pay them anyway.


>Your claim of high prison population, high crime numbers may just as 
>easily indicate efficient law enforcement and defficent prevention.

What is the purpose of law enforcement if not to make sure that laws
don't get broken? And wouldn't it indicate that there is something
wrong with the methods used if this goal doesn't get achieved
sufficiently? 

How would you define the purpose of law enforcement -- if not making
sure that the laws don't get violated (which is essentially
prevention)?