serious question

i'm sorry that my post sounded harsh. i'll admit... it was a drunken posting. i didn't mean for it to sound harsh / attacking though and i'm sorry for that. when i read it now i am cringing a little. not very diplomatic of me.

but... i'm fairly sure it was on topic...

with respect to not 'standing aside and doing nothing' i think that really does apply to situations such as the following (crimes against persons):

Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death just outside her appartment in Brooklyn (over the period of around half an hour). While around 34 neighbours heard at least part of the attack the majority of them didn't call the police. They did nohting.

> According to the New York Times, in an article dated December 28th, 1974, ten years after the murder, 25-year-old Sandra Zahler was beaten to death early Christmas morning in an apartment of the building which overlooked the site of the Genovese attack. Neighbors again said they heard screams and "fierce struggles" but did nothing.

> The story of Genovese's murder became an almost-instant parable about the supposed callousness, or at least apathy to others' plight, of either New York City, urban America, or humanity in general. Much of this framing of the event came in reaction to an investigative article [3] in the New York Times written by Martin Gansberg and published on March 27, two weeks after the murder. The article bore the provocative headline "Thirty-Eight Who Saw Murder Didn't Call the Police"; the public view of the story crystallized around a quote from the article, from an unidentified neighbor who saw part of the attack but deliberated, before finally getting another neighbor to call the police: "I didn't want to get involved."

Other reports, cited by Harlan Ellison in his book Harlan Ellison's Watching, stated that one man turned up his radio so that he wouldn't hear Genovese's screams.


I think people have a duty to intervene with respect to crimes against persons.

I'm having trouble with the notion that Mellors or other peoples lives would actually be better off if this man is deported to Nigeria, however.

I guess I'm thinking 'live and let live'.

BUT:

Done done can't be undone
(Unless one gives him some warning to split, I guess)

I guess Mellors posted about it because he was feeling... Divided? If he had already made up his mind I think it would have been only fair for him to tell us which way he had made it up because it seems as though support for one side is often interpreted as an attack on the other.

I really didn't mean to attack anyone. I guess my heart goes out to the underdogs of this world... And I'll bow out now so the thread doesn't get locked...

Hmmm...

STOP

THINK

ACT

Maybe??

Mellors.......

Why have you had to wait 6 years to get your own place?

Are you waiting for subsidized housing? What are your living arrangements now?

I am sorry if I am asking too many questions, I am from the US and am trying to understand the situation you speak of....

Thank you

I just don't get it why you reported this guy... Was he rude? Maybe you could loose your place if he had stayed?

The guy is working hard to support himself, he doesn't steal, he doesn't hurt anyone and you don't know he's going to do this if he looses his job (I personally don't think so because if he'd been willing to steal he'd do this now instead of working). Immigrants in UK (I'm talking about the legal ones) earn less than the "pureblood" Britons when they do the same job anyway. They pay the taxes and everything. That's not fair either.

And do you believe the guy is happy to stay there and have no rights whatsoever? Do you think he wouldn't have legalized his stay if it was possible? Who would want to live in constant fear of deportation?

I feel very sorry about the Nigeria guy and I don't even want to think what awaits him there in his "home". Probably nothing nice since he decided to find another one so far away and was determined to stay there even without citizen rights. How his deportation is going to affect/change your life or make it better?

Simple, Sparkling. One less illegal using up benefits, like housing, using up what rightfully belongs to British subjects.

This is the state of affairs in both the UK and the USA, because we have, and many others have not. This is reality, and not nice, but as my mother taught me early on...life is not fair. We can do alot to help, and we should, but we should not be made to do so, as our personal responsibilities are the most important...our kids, our family, our elders.

Well, I might as well weigh in....

Mellors made up his mind way before he asked our opinions...

Alexandra, I don't appreciate "drunken postings" but you opened my eyes, so thanks.

I totally agree that politics should be taken up elsewhere.

Scott, I don't really know how I quite feel that our "personal responsibilities" should be the most important, but I do think that's how most of us probably feel. Perhaps we need more "global" thinkers. I will certainly give this more thought...

Best,
Okie

some of my 'drunken postings' are actually very supportive ;-)

i'm glad you found some benefit to my post. once again i apologise that i didn't manage to convey what i wanted to say in a way that was easier to receive and that would not have been viewed as attacking.

back to the costs / benefits thing i think it is hard to weigh the pros and cons (to ones self, ones family, ones friends etc). for example... if the illegal immigrants were all deported the countries economy might actually collapse. here are some thoughts to back up that notion.

typically illegal immigrants find work where they are paid less than the minimum wage. they are there illegally so their employers don't need to worry about such things as paying them the legal wage. their employers also don't need to worry about such things as making the working conditions humane and meeting such things as occupational health and safety laws. this results in jobs that are filled by immigrants that would never be done by people who weren't illegal immigrants. those immigrants who work those kinds of jobs thus aren't 'stealing' jobs off citizens. if those illegal immigrants were deported then whoever was running the business might well be put out of business. one might think that that would be a good thing, but it if happened on a massive scale it could well lead to considerable harm to the economy of the country. and considerable harm to the economy of the country would result in considerable harm to oneself, ones family, ones friends etc.

i'm still ambivanent about considering some countries to be 'better than' others. i would think that that would depend a great deal on ones values. i'm reminded of a conversation between wittgenstein and one of his students:

student: despite all the problems of modern life i'd rather be living as we do now than living as the caveman did however many centuries ago.
wittgenstein: yes of course you would. but would the caveman?

i guess the immigrants who chose to immigrate do indeed reach the conclusion that they would be better off in whatever country they immigrated to. whether that is true or not depends on how you measure 'better off' i suppose. there are many remainder, however, and i'm sure some of them are more interested in improving their situation (through political revolution or helping others in their country or whatever) than in leaving their country behind and starting over in another.

i guess i just think that one less illegal immigrant is unlikely to improve my or my families and friends quality of life. it might affect that immigrants quality of life considerably, however. sure there is a slippery slope argument to the effect that if you let one stay you might as well open your borders with no restriction (which would indeed make the country broke) but as i said before if all the illegal immigrant workers went home... the economy would likely collapse.

imho the real injustice here is in the immigration laws that are happy to see professionals when what the country really needs is more hardworking unskilled labourers (for example). the latter might not meet official 'refugee status' but sometimes the improvement to their perceived quality of life can come close to that perceived by refugees. i think it is very sad indeed when a country economically relies on a source of labour where the labourers are typically paid less than minimum wage and work in terrible working conditions and then blames the workers for being there unlawfully. sigh. what a sucky world...

i guess that is why i would fairly much bow out of rocking the boat either way (wouldn't encourage people to come illegally or encourage the illegal people to go). just deal with the individual as an individual because the global scale of it all is beyond my comprehension and i figure most individuals are just trying to do the best they can. if its okay for me to have a little luck... maybe its okay for them to have a little luck too ;-)

just my 2 cents.

If Mellors has already reported the man then this is a closed subject ? Personally I wish we would all report any and all ILLEGAL aliens in the US and UK. I see our economy being eaten up by all of this and am tired of it too. It's nice to dream and talk about it when you are on a free student status but once you work for years you can *help* others legally with your own money and time..even effort like some of us do

firstly mouse, i am a male not female lol, secondly i understand that some of you are not to happy with me reporting the guy, but to be honest, i could not give a toss, him and others like him are killing my country, they see it has a easy touch, and we are, our rules govern that we must help them by offering them asylum, even when they dont need it and they abuse that system to the point that it afects the daily lives of the english people, it screws up our houseing, our healthcare, our judicial system, and costs us a load of money, money that could be spent on the people who have paid there taxes, the ones like me who live from hand to mouth week in week out, the peope like me who for the love of god can not get someware safe to live because it has been allocated to a illegal who is appealing his or her deportation.

we were once a great empire, now we are nothing more than a free ride for every waif and stray that knows it can manipulate the system

1 less person is not going to make much of a differance, he will be back and try again, but it is one less person milking this country, my personal opinion on this is, every man woman and child in this counrty has the right to report illegals and should at every oportunity.

if you dont agree with that tough, your not here, your not the ones that it affects.

was i within my rights to report this guy? hell yes, and i will do it again and again, i am NOT going to feel guilty for doing this, i made the right choice, and it was my choice, others turn a blind eye, i wont

If it was "simple", SeptemberMorn, and only a legal issue Mellors wouldn't have asked people about their opinions. He wasn't questioning the legality of it (that one was quite clear for him), he had a moral dilemma. And my reply wasn't about legality but morals. The human part of Mellors had doubts because what he did was against morals. The "good citizen" part was quite sure what to do. We are not machines and we can think for ourselves. Law is not always right. But we can be if we choose so. Because ruining someone's chances for better future just to be a "good citizen" seems a little cruel for me.

I moved a post and unfortunately several went with it. I apologize for that. The fighting stops right here or I will lock this thread.

January

AMEN, Mellors!! Tell it like it is, Babe!!

The same can be said about the US! They come from other countries but they want to bring their country with them! They want to change our laws and scream, demonstrate and strike when we don't. This is the USA! "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!" When in England, do as the English do! When in the USA, do as the Americans do! And that's just the tip of MY iceberg!

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we were once a great empire, now we are nothing more than a free ride for every waif and stray that knows it can manipulate the system

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Sparkling, it's obvious your morals and Mellors are not the same. I'm 200% behind Mellors. Pass judgement if you like. I don't care. I KNOW who *I* am.

ok. Not many steps here have been taken to 'limit political discussion', per the PC guidelines. This is a very heated subject and has gone from support to moral debate. I'm shutting it down now. Sorry.