> Immigration isn't a fake issue. Take a walk around Miami or San Diego. Or New York. Or London. Or Paris. Or Malmö.

I'm the son of Cuban immigrants, born in Miami, living in New York, and have walked Paris many times.

I don't understand your claim. Are you suggesting immigration is an issue because these places are diverse? Or have you somehow tapped into swaths of illegal immigrants in these areas that I've never seen or heard of?

> Are you suggesting immigration is an issue because these places are diverse?

I think the issue is that no one voted for these sorts of changes, the situation in parts of Paris with groups of people sleeping and congregating on the streets and what is occurring in Calais are unacceptable to people accustomed to a "Western" society. I think we will see Marine Le Pen perform very well in the upcoming election in France.

I think you're right! But there's a sharp contrast between the concept of the European nation-state and the U.S. European nations are predicated on ethnic identity. The question of "What is Holland if it is no longer Dutch?" is actually a valid one. Nothing like that could be true in the US, however. The US nation-state is based on a purely civic idea, where ethnicity has no structural purpose.

America was founded on immigration and has always been a country of immigrants.

Saying we didn't vote for that is like saying we didn't vote to have a country based on commerce.

>America was founded on immigration and has always been a country of immigrants.

From Europe.

It's not like the US started out as some mix of every idea/race/culture from every corner of the earth. Every country has people who originally came from somewhere and an identity grows from that. It's disingenuous to claim that Arab immigrants would assimilate as well as the Germans and the British did.

If Paris is not inhabited entirely by Parisians, it is a problem.

Who is a Parisian, though?

I literally spend last weekend in San Diego and saw a very dynamic and happy place. What are you on about ?

Yeah, I work every day in New York. I have no idea what this guy is talking about.

This is the standard thing that xenophobes do when talking about how bad immigration is. They tell someone to take a loot at X. Where X is a place the listener probably hasn't been to and doesn't really know anything about.

It's like if I was talking to a bunch of factory workers in Kentucky about how bad marijuana is and said "just take a look at Holland!" They'd have no fucking idea what it's like in Holland but someone claiming to be an authority just told them the situation was concerning.

Step 0: Stop calling him a Xenophobe because he said something you don't agree with, or he said something wrong.

My step 0: see things for what they are and don't apologize for callings bigots bigots.

Maybe he is a bigot. But you have a choice about whether you want to make the discussion personal and permanent (you are a bigot) or transient and focused on ideas (I think one of your assumptions is wrong).

The sky is blue but it's not necessarily productive to say so in every conversation.

> The people getting more than they put in are parasites; the people getting less than they put in are suckers.

You're describing the same people at different stages in their lives.

Nope.

Some people are parasites over the course of their lives.

Others are suckers over the course of their lives.

Very few make the transition from one to the other, except that as a general rule the young suckers get screwed even harder.

> Immigration isn't a fake issue. Take a walk around Miami or San Diego. Or New York. Or London. Or Paris. Or Malmö.

What exactly am I supposed to be looking for?

"The people getting more than they put in are parasites; the people getting less than they put in are suckers. When you don't pay for your own healthcare, you don't care how much it costs. Go to any veterinarian's office to see the cost of medicine in a free market."

These are all problems with any system of insurance that involves risk pooling and are not unique to PPACA's reforms.

Indeed. "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need," doesn't work.

So, no firefighters for you. No ambulances. No tax levies for public education. No child labor protection laws. No OSHA. It's just everyone for themselves.

>Gay marriage is just the final nail in the coffin of marriage, which was already basically dead. It's a mind-bogglingly stupid hill to die on, but nobody ever accused conservatives of brilliance.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Are you for or against gay marriage?

I think the statement should mean neither. He is saying marriage institution being a government subsidy is absurd and should be shot in the head. No one should "get married" in government standards. We should not assist someone in any way for having a child. We should enforce population control as light handed as possible. Okay that's just how I feel about everything actually, nevermind.

You're missing the point of legal marriage. At minimum, it's meant to provide a legal framework for adults who are raising children together so that the children are legally protected under the rubric of a family. Nothing to do (necessarily) with tax or policy incentives.

In order for marriage to be worth anything, it has to be a lifelong contract enforceable in a court of law. If a wife can eject from the marriage at any time, it isn't marriage. If a wife can eject from the marriage at any time _and_ take the house _and_ take the children _and_ reach into her former husband's pocketbook for years on end and possibly for the rest of his life, it isn't just not marriage, it's slavery.

Protesting homosexual marriage after heterosexual marriage has been destroyed is utterly absurd. It boggles my mind to think that anyone is that stupid.

> Gay marriage is just the final nail in the coffin of marriage, which was already basically dead.

Please elaborate.

Certainly.

Man's marriage vows: I, ____, take you, ____, to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and worship, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.

Wife's marriage vows: I, ____, take you, ____, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy law, and this is my solemn vow.

Marriage was a lifelong contract between a man and a woman for the purpose of producing healthy, well-adjusted children in a stable family unit. Lifelong means "till death do us part". If it isn't lifelong, it isn't marriage. Also note the woman's vow to obey.

Plus, marriage used to involve virgin brides. The man would marry to get access to a woman he would not have otherwise had access to, both for sexual gratification and for sexual reproduction.

If one cannot enforce one's marriage contract, and one and possibly many others have fucked one's wife-to-be before marriage, then what exactly is the difference between a marriage and a casual LTR?

Protesting homosexual marriage after one accepts the destruction of heterosexual marriage is probably the dumbest thing any conservative ever does.

Dear lord

Do you directly pay for your roads? Do you care how much it cost?

How much of the government budget goes to roads?

About 6% of spending goes to transportation. ~$150 billion.