Re: Fuck the immigrants!

Gerhard Fiedler wrote:

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...)

So then you see nothing wrong with me wanting to see immigration laws enforced. Then why are we arguing (or are we arguing)?

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. :)

Of course. And I'd have no problems with somebody saying, for example, that speeding laws should be more rigorously enforced. I'd be more worried about my speeding tendoncy and probably would slow down - but I wouldn't attack the person saying he was wrong. He would be right.

How does that stack up with your opinion that all laws should get always enforced?

Of course.

Are there not situations where you hope that a certain law would not get enforced, at least not that one time?

Again, of course. If I speed and get caught then I accept the consequences. I am not arguing that speeders should turn themselves in, nor am I arguing that illegal aliens should turn themselves in, I am arguing that the law should be enforced and I accept that. Additionally I would think that more attention should be paid to more serious crimes. IOW if law enforcement resources are limited (they are) then they should be concentrated on the more serious crimes. Common sense would say we should work harder catching murderers than jaywalkers if we cannot catch them all. Violations of immigration laws are, IMHO, more serious than jaywalking or speeding. The law seems to agree if you compare the penalities.

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?

No it is not wrong. People do break the law all the time.

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.

According to the law the penalty for illegal entrance, working illegal, etc is removal. The law does not proscribe "other ways". If you want "other ways" then campaign to have the law changed.

So while I agree that the law should be enforced, the answer to the "how" is a bit more complex.

The question of "how" is answered by the proscribed penality in the law.

The question of limited resources for law enforcement and the most efficient use of these is important in this context.

This seems to address the issue of "how" to round up suspects for prosecution. That is indeed an issue, one that we have not gotten to yet as far as I'm concerned. Since we seem to be in agreement that if caught illegals should face prosecution and application of the proscribed penalty we can discuss the "how" of rounding up such illegals.

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.)

Yes but that cannot be construed to prevention.

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.

I used deterrent to address your issue and concern of prevention. Yes I believe prevention is also important, but we were discussing the issue of enforcement.

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.

Some call it justice...

I don't think that the revenge one is very helpful or necessary.

Many people do but view it as justice.

That's why I look mainly at the prevention (or deterrent) effect of law enforcement actions.

Well we cannot prevent those who have already violated. We are in agreement that they should be removed, which was my original point.

Of course one could say that we should do everything.

We should at least strive, no? Either that or perhaps we should change our objectives to be more real.

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.

This is debatable. I am not convinced that we cannot achieve significantly more, even on less. We all know that the government is very inefficient at many, many things. This is not to say that they cannot be much more efficient and effective. I happen to believe there is lots of room for improvement, but whenever you say this people seem to shoot you down as crazy.

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.

That is, by definition, one measure of effectiveness. However I think you agree that the more serious the crime the more agressively it should be persued, even if prevention/deterence may be less effective. For example, we should probably try harder to catch murderers, serious felons, sex offenders, smugglers, terrorists even if it's hard and even if it does not result in significant reduction preventing future violations. I guess what I'm saying is that immigrants who violate the law are, IMO, serious and should be persued. Do you not agree?

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?

Of course not! The law should be enforced. However, I, like you, can disagree with the law and have opinions on it.

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.

Because it is compelling a private individual to work for the government in the rehlm of law enforcement (and without any form of compensation).

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...)

What, according to the law (excuse me but I am not an employer), is the business to do when/if they find an illegal? Are they compelled to report them? Additionally, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that the employer is on the hook (or possibly be on the hook) if the illegal presents fake ID. Now you are burdening the employer to be expert in identification of forged documents by possibly levying punishment for lack of their ability to be good law enforcement officers. But this is neither here nor there - the law is in place and should be observed.

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.

Well then we just have a difference of opinions here - 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.

Or we could do some research into history.

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?

Because before they broke the law the immigrant broke the law. In fact if the immigrant did not break the law then the employer also did not break the law. If you steal a jacket then sell it to me did I break the law? No. I had no idea that the jacket was stolen. But if you did not steal the jacket but acquired it legally then it is clear that I certainly did not violate the law!

Now, of course, you'll argue that if I bought, say a stereo from the back of a truck that I knew it was not on the up and up thus I am also liable. And a parallel can be drawn to an employer who "knowingly" is hiring illegals. Of course the same parallel can be drawn between a consumer not knowing they are buying a jacket that was stolen and an employer who was tricked by faked documentation to believing that the employee was indeed legal. The answer becomes, it depends on the situation and facts involved.

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.

Well yes. You are speaking of the set of unscrupuous employers who use such tactics to evade the law. And yes I believe that rigorous enforcement should be applied. But there is also the set of innocent/naive employers who, IMHO, have not violated the law as imposed on business and while law enforcement should also be applied, I believe that they should eventually be found innocent of the charge.

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?

Again, the purpose of law enforcement is as it sounds - to enforce the law, nothing more, nothing less. For example, assuming a law whose punishment is trivial, the law can still be enforced. The deterrent after effect of such law enforcement is minimal. However this does not mean that law enforcement cannot happen against such a law. In fact the law enforcement indeed happens. The deterrent effect is minmal only because the penalty is minimal

And wouldn't it indicate that there is something wrong with the methods used if this goal doesn't get achieved sufficiently?

The goal of law enforcement is enforcement of the law. The goal of punitive punishment is to effect deterrence. There are two things that effect deterrence: 1) a penalty that violators do not want to have to pay and 2) the likelihood of the law being enforced. If the penalty is minimal the law will be violated 'cause it doesn't matter to violator to face the punishment (i.e. the punishment needs to fit the crime).

However, even if the penalty properly fits the crime so as to have a deterrent effect, if law enforcement (ergo showing that law enforcement is separate from deterrent effect but also effect it) is lax or not enforced then the deterrent effect is also minimized or non-existent. Deterrent effect and/or prevention is separate from law enforcement but it requires both the likelihood of getting caught (law enforcement) and the facing of a substantial penalty (penalty fits the crime).

WRT illegal aliens the punishment does indeed have a deterrent effect. The problem is that enforcement is lax, thus diminishing or eliminating the deterrent effect of the law. Immigrants feel they are above the law because the law is not enforced. Even several, highly publized cases of deportation (i.e. the WalMart thing) can have a large impact on the minds of illegal immigrants and thus raise the deterrent effect at a minimal cost.

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

I would define law enforcement as enforcement of the law. It does not "make sure that laws don't get violated" rather it is the processing of criminal who have already violated the law. Given swift and sure enforcement of violators of the law, sometimes coupled with "advertising" (visibility) serves to make potentially new violators more aware of the consequences and adds to the deterrent effect as expressed by the law (if indeed expressed properly) and the intent of the law (to hopefully keep people from violating it in the first place, hence prevention).

This is not to say that law enforcement officials cannot also partake in other efforts designed to prevent law before it happens. For example, police presence at demonstrations, on the side of the highway, at bars, etc do serve to have a preventative quality by giving about the "we are watching" message. When a law enforcement officer is "watching" he is not enforcing any laws - no laws have yet been violated for him to enforce. If, however, an unruly demonstrator violates the law the officer switches to law enforcement mode and effects an arrest. This can have a preventative effect on the other demonstrators (i.e. break the law you will be arrested).

Indeed, in my neighborhood the police put up signs saying "Hit a loved one - go to jail" in an effort to prevent domestic violence. However, until and unless somebody hits a loved one no enforcement of that law is done. Thankfully they do not go into homes in my neighborhood and arrest people for domestic violence until and unless that law is violated.
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Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven.