The anti-Christianity of the Racist Right

[_ajax18]

Certain sectors, that is true. But, in an aggregate sense, immigration contributes to the U.S. general welfare more than individual sectors are affected in the aggregate. Studies have been made about similar immigrants from Italy in the early 20th century.
I find this very difficult to believe.

I have a real hard time believing this. American people have a pretty good nose for money and if that were what they were offering the border would simply not exist. If unbridled immigration were not an overall drag on the economy there would be no need for a border.

Approximately half were illiterate. Yet, today, their descendants are on parity with other immigrant populations in America.

That doesn't mean they weren't a drag on the economy. Nobody is saying they aren't capable or smart. It's just unskilled labor and poverty and other problems that this country did not create that we're being practically forced to solve, but what more, we're being forced to solve it in a way that they find acceptable. Thus curtailing their prodigious population explosion doesn't seem to be something they care to do.

But, this board is a Mormon-oriented Board. I make the post to point out to you that the Church does not deny a temple recommend for immigrant status, nor does it care about immigration status when it calls missionaries to full-time status. Moreover, the Church's welfare system assists in a huge way the families of illegal aliens. Nowhere do Church authorities in their sermons denounce the law-breaking of illegal immigrants.

Agreed, the Church has enough money now that they'll take baptisms anyway they can get them. This wasn't always the case. The first language the gospel was preached in, in South America, was not Spanish or Portuguese. It was German. The Church at that simply did not feel it was strong enough to take on the problems and difficulties that these people had to offer. They needed educated and wealthier tithe payers.

Rollo is right. I don't think the Church considers it a serious offense to illegally immigrate. The White Bible did say not to promote it or try to help people immigrate from their countries, at least it did in 97.

Shouldn't this also tell you that local authorities who deny economic or spiritual support to illegal aliens, or who tell them to return to their countries of origin, say things the Church does not teach?

Now that's a stretch. The Church is too scared to say anything at all hardly one way or the other. That's usually how they handle controversial situations nowadays. They need tithing contributions from people like you and Coggins.

[_capt jack]

The first language the gospel was preached in, in South America, was not Spanish or Portuguese. It was German. The Church at that simply did not feel it was strong enough to take on the problems and difficulties that these people had to offer. They needed educated and wealthier tithe payers. .

There is a major problem with your argument: the Germans they taught in the 1920s and 30s were anything but wealthy and weren't any more educated than their Spanish and Portugese speaking neighbors. The reason that German speaking missionaries were even sent was because German members who had emigrated from war devastated Germany wrote and asked for support.

German immigrants in 1920s Argentina worked mainly as unionized labor in factories, meat-packing plants, or worked as small farmers.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

The Church sends 19-year-olds who are illegal immigrants on missions within the U.S. The Church knows of their status. What does that tell you about how the Church views the offense?

Official Church source please.

I hear you say that illegal immigration is a huge drain upon the U.S. economy. Certain sectors, that is true. But, in an aggregate sense, immigration contributes to the U.S. general welfare more than individual sectors are affected in the aggregate.

This is one really big cow pie in the sky. Here's the reality:

In FY 2004 there were around 4.5 million low-skill immigrant households in the U.S. containing 15.9 million persons. About 60 percent of these low-skill immigrant households were headed by legal immigrants and 40 percent by illegal immigrants. The analysis presented here measures the total benefits and services received by these "low- skill immigrant households" compared to the total taxes paid.

In FY 2004, the average low skill immigrant household received $30,160 in direct benefits, means-tested benefits, education, and population-based services from all levels of government. By contrast, low-skill immigrant households paid only $10,573 in taxes in FY 2004. A household's net fiscal deficit equals the cost of benefits and services received minus taxes paid. The average low-skill household had a fiscal deficit of $19,588 (expenditures of $30,160 minus $10,573 in taxes).

At the state and local level, the average low skill immigrant household received $14,145 in benefits and services and paid only $5,309 in taxes. The average low skill immigrant households imposed a net fiscal burden on state and local government of $8,836 per year.

The fiscal burden imposed by low skill immigrant households is slightly greater at the state and local level than at the federal level. The annual fiscal deficit for all 4.54 million low skill immigrant households at the state and local level in 2004 was $49.1 billion. Over the next ten years the state and local fiscal deficit caused by low skill immigrants on state and local governments will approach a half trillion dollars.

Current federal immigration policy permits a massive inflow of both legal and illegal low skill immigrants to enter and reside in the U.S. This imposes a massive unfunded mandate on state and local government which much bear the costs of that immigration flow.

Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants would increase the costs outlined in this testimony. Some 50 to 60 percent of illegal immigrants lack a high school degree. Granting amnesty or conditional amnesty to illegal immigrants would, overtime, increase their use of means-tested welfare, Social Security and Medicare. Fiscal costs would go up significantly in the short term but would go up dramatically after the amnesty recipient reached retirement. Based on my current research, I estimate that if all the current adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. were granted amnesty the net retirement costs to government (benefits minus taxes) could be over $2.5 trillion.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigr ... 52107a.cfm

As I said previously, the average low skilled immigrant, legal or illegal, is consuming several times in taxpayer dollars what he pays in taxes, and none of this takes into account the displacement of indigenous workers by illegals and by a glut of legal immigrants, not to mention the lowering of wages created by the artificially high labor pool of unskilled or semi-skilled workers.

Then there is the primary difference between the present generation of immigrants from Mexico and those who came here in prior generations and people from other countries who came through Ellis Island in the Twenties, and that is that many of these people are balkanizing and tribalizing, having no desire and, regarding our own laws, no incentive to learn the language, history, and culture of America and become Americans. This is a symptom of the intellectual and moral disarmament this society has undergone due primarily to the success of the doctrine of Multiculturalism.

But, this board is a Mormon-oriented Board. I make the post to point out to you that the Church does not deny a temple recommend for immigrant status, nor does it care about immigration status when it calls missionaries to full-time status. Moreover, the Church's welfare system assists in a huge way the families of illegal aliens. Nowhere do Church authorities in their sermons denounce the law-breaking of illegal immigrants.

Shouldn't this point tell you that that spewing forth from some on this board about illegal immigration is just right-ring rhetoric the Church does not endorse. Shouldn't this also tell you that local authorities who deny economic or spiritual support to illegal aliens, or who tell them to return to their countries of origin, say things the Church does not teach?

I submit to you that essential Christianity requires us to open our arms to the poor and the needy and to impart of our substance irrespective of immigration status. Whether they be the children of Lehi or not (I believe they are, notwithstanding the popular works of the LGT), my position remains the same.

I submit to you that essential Christianity requires reverence and respect for the rule of law and equality under the law, concepts central to the Constitution, which official Church doctrine accepts as an inspired document. I submit that essential Christianity does not support criminality. I submit that foreign nationals who do not respect the laws of the countries they wish to inhabit divest themselves, at least to some degree, of the same consideration for citizenship as do those who come here legally and jump through all the hoops.

What is your official Church source for the Church's settled policy on illegal immigrants? Why has the 12th Article of Faith been waved for Illegal Mexican immigrants?

Why should I and my Children and their Children be required to contribute vast sums of the fruits of our labor to the support of people who are not even legal members of the American body politic?

[_Coggins7]

So Coggins point has validity. Why can he not stop paying his taxes and still get a recommend? If your theory is correct then this reflects a double standard for the Church.

Indeed, and we should take this a bit further. Not only would I like to quite paying income, property, and capital gains taxes altogether, If I was an employer, I'd like to be exempt from all labor laws and safety regulations, as well as all environmental rules. So I just think I'd violate them and watch my Bishop shrug his shoulders and say "who won the ballgame last night?".

I'd also like to be able to download all the movies and music I feel like, ad infinitum, without paying for any of it. I also don't see why I need to have a driver's license to operate my vehicles. If I lose my job, I see no reason why I can't lie through my teeth and tell the welfare worker that I have 10 kids, all of whom have leprosy and a wife with no arms and legs, so I can really soak the system for all its worth.

And I will fully expect the Church to wink and turn the other way, hand me my Temple recommend, and send me on my way.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

And look where that is getting Europe with its rising Muslim population.

Thank you, as you have now unwittingly just sent your argument right off the tracks and onto the jagged rocks below. What is happening in Europe is precisely, in an advanced stage, what is happening here and what will eventually transpire if we go not get control of our borders.

The vast majority of the Mexicans coming to the country at this time are not skilled workers or people with advanced degrees; they are essentially peasants, the same kind of people we are primarily taking in from other nations. Indeed, present immigration policy favors these kinds of people over skilled, educated individuals. What Europe is experiencing now is the fruit of the mass, uncontrolled immigration of a vast number of unassimilable, or unassimilating aliens who are essentially alienated by language and culture from the host country. They are not becoming British, or Dutch, or French, but setting up ethnic enclaves within these countries and simply continuing to live as if they were in their own. If this means honor killings, sexual mutilation, slavery, the subjugation of woman, and Sharia law, so be it. No, Mexicans are not Muslims (although our southern border has become a open conduit for terrorists seeking to enter here, as well as street gangs and drug runners), but not all things Mexican are going to by transferrable to America intact, nor clearly, all things Muslim.

[_Coggins7]

http://www.heritage.org/research/immigr ... d/SR_9.pdf

[_harmony]

You're going to have to decide what you want: cheap food or expensive food. That's essentially what this whole argument is about. Immigrant labor is used mostly in the food industry, either in the fields or in the processing plants.

There are millions of immigrants who stay very quietly under the radar, paying taxes, working hard, staying out of trouble. For their employers, they are a boon. For their fellow native workers, they are a drain. According to George Borjas, Harvard University, 2006, immigrant workers shift the net gain to the employers of immigrant workers and to every other native-born person, by about $80 per worker. That's a lot of money to gain by using immigrant workers instead of native workers, about $20 billion annually. Why? Because native-born workers want more money to do the same job that immigrant workers will do for less. How many native workers would do the jobs immigrants do, for the wages immigrants are paid?

I pay out about 10% of our Pickle wages on food. Would anyone be willing to pay out 40% of their wages to put food on the table, if it meant workers in agriculture and the food industry were paid a living wage? I doubt it. We like to talk big, but when push comes to shove, we don't want to pay more for our food. Let's face it: we're willing to put up with illegal immigrants in order to put cheap food on our tables.

[_rcrocket]

And, to echo what Harmony has said, I believe that the way the U.S. economy is structured, together with our current very low unemployment rate, low-skilled immigrants contribute more to the public welfare than they consume. I reach those conclusions from my days, many years ago, as an economics professor where my focus then was welfare economics (not the same as the "welfare state," rather, welfare economics looks to questions as to the greater public good).

North of where I live, huge segments of the San Joaquin farming community depend upon illegal immigrant labor. This is the richest farm land in the world. Without that labor, we'd be paying triple what we now pay for almonds, lettuce, grapes, cabbage, peaches, cotton and other stuff grown there. Those costs affect the poor more than the affect the well-to-do, where staples consume more of a person's income.

These immigrants are also replacing the "white" Mormons who are leaving southern California, cashing in their homes, to live in Provo or St. George. Our chapels in the San Fernando Valley are filled with Mexican and central American immigrants to bring great vibrancy and ability to the Church and its mission. A general authority came through our stake recently and said that the Church wouldn't be calling stake presidents in southern California any longer who can't speak Spanish, or so my Spanish-speaking stake president has said to me.

And, it is undisputed that the Church sends illegals out on missions with the United States. When I was a high councilor many years ago, and responsible for our Spanish unit, I saw it all the time.

I opened this thread and raised it because I see how irresponsible and unChristian many so-called Christians are on the point of "brown" immigration. The U.S. economy is the strongest in the world. The stock market is near its peak. Unemployment is way down. Health care, although not perfect. is better than any other nation in the world of any particular size. Environmental development and legislation has improved living conditions. Retirement incomes are way up. Yet, since Reagan opened the floodgates with his amnest legislation, we've had 12 million new illegal immigrants into American society. What has the brought us? Prosperity and a much better way of life for them. I am so thrilled to be driving around on Saturdays and Sundays and seeing new soccer fields filled to capacity with the children of these immigrants. They deserve the best America can offer.

I am no bleeding-heart liberal. I have never heard of "move-on.com" except when I hear Rush talking about it. I am a committed Christian with libertarian principles -- live and let live. For Coggins to claim he is a libertarian is mind-boggling.


rcrocket

[_ajax18]

The first language the gospel was preached in, in South America, was not Spanish or Portuguese. It was German. The Church at that simply did not feel it was strong enough to take on the problems and difficulties that these people had to offer. They needed educated and wealthier tithe payers. .

There is a major problem with your argument: the Germans they taught in the 1920s and 30s were anything but wealthy and weren't any more educated than their Spanish and Portugese speaking neighbors. The reason that German speaking missionaries were even sent was because German members who had emigrated from war devastated Germany wrote and asked for support.

German immigrants in 1920s Argentina worked mainly as unionized labor in factories, meat-packing plants, or worked as small farmers.

That's a very interesting point. It's just surprising to me because most German colonies I visited didn't look much different from America or western Europe. It was a good place to stop if you just wanted to get out of the dirt and grunge and sit in a nice house for a few hours.

[_ajax18]

You're going to have to decide what you want: cheap food or expensive food. That's essentially what this whole argument is about. Immigrant labor is used mostly in the food industry, either in the fields or in the processing plants.

There are millions of immigrants who stay very quietly under the radar, paying taxes, working hard, staying out of trouble. For their employers, they are a boon. For their fellow native workers, they are a drain. According to George Borjas, Harvard University, 2006, immigrant workers shift the net gain to the employers of immigrant workers and to every other native-born person, by about $80 per worker. That's a lot of money to gain by using immigrant workers instead of native workers, about $20 billion annually. Why? Because native-born workers want more money to do the same job that immigrant workers will do for less. How many native workers would do the jobs immigrants do, for the wages immigrants are paid?

I pay out about 10% of our Pickle wages on food. Would anyone be willing to pay out 40% of their wages to put food on the table, if it meant workers in agriculture and the food industry were paid a living wage? I doubt it. We like to talk big, but when push comes to shove, we don't want to pay more for our food. Let's face it: we're willing to put up with illegal immigrants in order to put cheap food on our tables.

But Harmony with the money we're saving on food, aren't we just paying it right back in taxes anâ social programs? I'm not just talking about immigrants. I'm including trailor trash like myself working at WalMart competing with the Mexicans for these crappy jobs. The only person that really gains is WalMart. Higher paid people may think they're saving money but are they? Do they really want to catch my diseases or wait on me four a half an hour to find their stuff because I can't afford a pair of glasses?

The idea that cheap labor is good for the country as a whole doesn't seem to add up for me. You also left out the future resentment and envy that immigrants will feel toward the upper class. Whatever social problems and disparity of wealth exist now, I think they will be further inflamed once you add racial differences to the mix.