Can the right also get serious for once. Those in Texas who were shot at have been able to find employment and build a life in Texas. If Texans did not want to hire them they would not be there.
Can the right also get serious for once. Those in Texas who were shot at have been able to find employment and build a life in Texas. If Texans did not want to hire them they would not be there.
Exactly. Illegal immigrants in Texas are not hiding. They don't have to. They know where to go daily to get picked up by construction companies, landscapers, real estate developers, cleaning services, etc. It is all happening in the open. All the talk about illegal immigrants is an act.
Well-said. We need people to do the work we can't or won't perform. We need them legally, so they are provided the fair wages and job protections afforded U.S. citizens. We need them to work hard, make money, then go home till the next "shift" starts. How to do that?
Bring back the Bracero program. Mexican citizens who wanted to work in the United States were granted seasonal (and renewable) work permits, came north, did the work (primarily picking crops), collected their pay, then went home. It wasn't perfect--Big Ag, then as now, abused the system to squeeze out more profits--but by and large it worked: Americans needed work done, Mexicans wanted to do it, and both sides profited from this legalized guest worker program.
It started during WWII and ended in the 1960s, but I'd like to see it reinstated in a modern form. I think offering seasonal work to all who want it, with a guarantee of annual renewal for good behavior, would greatly reduce illegal immigration, a win for both nations.
We still have between 1.7-1.9 jobs open for every able-bodied and unemployed American worker. We also have below replacement rate population growth. We're in the middle of a Boomer retirement wave. We NEED immigrants in this country for a number of economic reasons. The central bank is actively fighting wage-growth inflation in the services sector via base lending rate hikes as a result of inflationary pressures that accrue when employers have to raise wages to attract limited labor, which then gets passed onto the consumer via price growth to accommodate higher wages paid to employees.
I believe the answer to your question is тАЬNo. They cannot get serious about facts or reality, because they are only serious about fascism and hatred. Those are the twin engines flying that very serious plane.
We could reduce illegal immigration by 80% within six months if we really wanted to. All it would take is a new law; hire someone undocumented once, and it's $100K per incident. Twice, it's a million, and three times, it's prison for the heads of the companies. They'd suddenly get serious, and there would be no work. But that's not what they want. They want this to be like Prohibition; make the law on Friday, ignore it by Monday, except for the people who have no power who they'll beat up on periodically to keep up the theater.
(Not to say I approve of the above. I find it morally and practically abominable. But if they wanted to actually cut what they say they hate, it'd do that.)
If America didnтАЩt hire the undocumented weтАЩd have no food, construction, nail salons or hotel workers. There is a reason that all of the people in this tragedy had jobs. They are needed.
Exactly, I worked in personnel and we had to fingerprint and copy three IDs to prove a person had the right to work. If people are hiring illegals they are breaking the law, except for agricultural work which is exempt. Also, regulations for small business is different. Restaurants also have different laws. Small businesses can pay in cash. I don't hear anything about all the Asian illegals that come through the ports or the eastern Europeans either. Even though the countries are no longer Communist the people still get a free pass. But then they're white.
There really should be no exemptions just like there shouldnтАЩt for overtime, minimum wage laws, or unemployment. In fact, the people who need those the most are the jobs that are exempt!
When Adam Serwer wrote "Cruelty is the Point" after Trump was in office for a while, the clarity of what he wrote hit me hard. He compared hate filled MAGA to the old photos of white people laughing and grinning like hyenas at the lynching of Black people. Cruelty feeds these people. Greg Abbott is no different. Two mothers killed in the slaughter outside Houston had thrown their bodies over their children. They died saving their babies. But filth like Abbott has to ring the racist bell. It's "wink-wink-nothing to see here", they're "illegal". The incandescent rage I feel toward these ignorant, hate filled excuses for humans runs deep.
While I agree with what you say about Abbott and his ilk, donтАЩt let them harden your heart with hate. That is their goal. TheyтАЩre hoping to spread of hate and fear for money and power. We must stand up with love and empathy so we call out their selfish, cruel motives, but donтАЩt become like them in their ways of hate.
I will vote them out, and encourage everyone I interact with to do the same, but IтАЩm careful not to let evil into my heart because it can make a home there.
I wasnтАЩt talking about it from a superstitious тАЬmind of its ownтАЭ type thing. I was speaking about it becoming a way of thinking. It has been scientifically proven that those who write down 5 things they are grateful for at night begin to look for things during the day to be grateful for. I am just saying I donтАЩt want to become a person whose so cynical and full of hate, that it leads to shooting people who ring the doorbell (ring any bells?). ThatтАЩs it. Nothing superstitious about how the mind works.
I believe that Republicans have never had any intention of passing legislation to make life better for all Americans. The old Republican party was all about making the rich richer. The MAGAs finally realized this and rejected the old GOP. This is part of the reason for Trump's rise. Many of them also loved that instead of using dog whistles, he was overtly racist.
The GOP also learned with the Dobb's decision that getting their way on a wedge issue does not work to enhance their political power. I don't see them ever coming up with a solution to the immigration problem.
They arenтАЩt into offering solutions. That was the GOP in the BT. They just would rather make you angry and afraid of everything so youтАЩll vote for them: crime, LGTBQ, your neighbor, your schools, тАЬgroomersтАЭ and the woke mob, immigrants, non-church going hippies, SUCCESSFUL economies, and the list goes on. TheyтАЩll never run out of boogeymen. Once you step outside the scare mongering the scales fall from your eyes and you hear the desperation.
This is the sickest part or our "immigration debate". We want the workers here working. We just don't want them to have the protections or rights that a work visa would provide.
Yes, but it is not necessarily "we" who don't want to solve the immigration issue. Republicans clearly don't want to fix our immigration system because then they would no longer have that issue to bash Democrats with. I think Democrats would like to fix our immigration system to deal humanely as well as pragmatically with immigrants already here and make the system more workable for those who want to come.
I disagree with your first person plural pronoun in your first and second sentences.
Primarily capitalists, anti-unionist and wannabe slave-owners as all want to save money by under-paying for work. Most customers, in diners or gas stations, or supermarkets, want somene to help them. It does not matter to many of us if the "helper" has "papers" or not when we want what we want as long as the "helper" is paid sufficiently for what (s)he does.
Only wannabe slave-owners (and others who do not want to deduct tax payroll since that can only be done if you pay good wages subject to governmental review via your declarations), and it cuts down your profits.
You think most customers (and voters) would endorse significant price increases for many categories of food, for the sake of employing only documented workers legally?
We're paying top dollar for food anyway. I'd rather it go to the people picking the peppers and lettuce than the folks who write the press releases about how well Big Ag treats its "guest workers." Good pay and working conditions is the right thing to do for these workers, and just as important, ensures there will always be people lining up to pick our peppers and lettuce.
We have some of the cheapest food in the world as percentage of income. Cheap food is why Americans are so far. ItтАЩs like griping about gas prices. We are all so spoiled.
Doesn't it have to mean that? Isn't avoiding the expenses of legally competitive wages, and health and safety protections, the whole point of hiring undocumented?
There are apparently not enough undocumented, workers so some states are rolling back child labor protections. I still remember the articles about the conditions in the meat packing plants during COVID, and I doubt they have improved.
No. You seem to equate "legally competitve" wages with "sufficient pay." And what do undocumented workers receive, anyway? Many of them have made a life for themselves in the US, pay taxes, and only worry that some MAGAhole will turn them in after 10-15 of being better citizens than the bosses who evade taxes when and wherever they can, see TFG and his tax returns.
Along those lines (and perhaps this is known), how did the shooter get his gun? I'm not an expert on Texas gun laws, but can't anyone sell a gun to anyone there? No background check, no citizenship requirement, etc.
For the group who lives in perpetual fear, shouldn't there be some fear about illegal immigrants easily getting guns? Sure, this time the victims were illegal immigrants (as if that should matter), but next time? The time after that? And if we do have to parse victims, it would be nice if the good Christians on the political right could give us a cheat sheet of which lives matter (as if we don't already know).
It doesn't matter how he procured the weapon. If a crazy person shoots someone, if an undocumented resident shoot someone it cancels out any need to figure out how the weapon was procured. It almost cancels out the deaths of the people. I keep waiting, though, for the governor to say that the victims shouldn't have asked the shooter to stop shooting. They should have just shot him themselves as an auditory stand your ground defense.
Wait a minute, if the shooter procured the gun from a gun store, you donтАЩt think that bears some examination? And this person had the police called on them before for this. Are you saying that a known illegal immigrant in possession of an illegal fire arm wasnтАЩt arrested by the local police? What kind of state is Abbot running exactly?
Part of the problem with discourse these days is that no one reads beyond the first sentence. Thanks for reading farther.
It's sort of like when teachers would say "read the instructions, ALL of the instructions" before you start the test (do they say that anymore?). Read all the comment before figuring out if you agree or not!
Depending on which part of the bible you're reading, god is quite vengeful. I've never really understood how a perfect, all-powerful being can have such stringent requirements for humanity's salvation, else condemned to suffer for all eternity, yet can be so petty and spiteful itself. Mysterious indeed.
In other words "Mysterious Ways" = "I don't know... Questions are hard!"
Well, I was 13 years old girl in Costa Rica when I decided that I would not go to church anymore. My parents were catholic but not dogmatic. They thought us to learn and read and develop critical thinking. They never pushed us to read the Bible and I am glad. They gave us books about history, literature, etc. We were three girls born in the 50"s. My Mom told us that we should be very scared of getting pregnant and that we should first go to university. She did not believe that a woman role was as a reproductive machine. Well, I am the oldest, became a NASA scientist, my sister became a civil engineer and was the leader on a crew of all men to build roads and bridges. My other sister became a dental surgeon. And we were poor, but at that time, The University of Costa Rica had a program. If you got straight A's, you did not pay tuition. That is the way we did it. I am so glad that my parents were so progressive. I tried to read the Bible once, it was awful, rape, incest, violence, crucifixion. God as a man, women blamed for everything at the beginning of whatever they thought the beginning was, etc. I am an agnostic and I will never change at 70. Extremist, dogmatic religion to me is toxic. I am talking about those. Not about moderate religious people who don't want to impose their beliefs on others.
The Christian God obviously suffers from multiple personality disorder, which only makes sense since they are supposedly three-in-one.
I find the idea that there is this powerful being that made everything (and that knows everything, including the future) has a bunch of laws (including dietary and clothing restrictions and detailed architectural designs for a temple) and that ACTUALLY PLAYS FAVORITES and that watches everything you do (and think) and is going to judge you for it and punish you FOR ETERNITY (for maybe 80-90 years of wrongdoing?) both incoherent and actually awful.
Oh, and he turned part of himself into the equivalent of an animal sacrifice, because I guess that is the only way that people can be forgiven by an all-powerful being that sustains and upholds the very universe.
That's the part I "love." An almighty deity had to incarnate himself as a human, so he could sacrifice himself to himself. If he didn't do that, he'd torture every human for literal eternity. Yup, makes sense.
Yes, it literally makes no sense unless you are a member of a society that believes that animal sacrifice is an effective way to propitiate powerful supernatural entities... and even then it doesn't actually make any sense, because the sacrifice is that he had to pretend to be one of us for about half a lifetime and then (not actually) die?
It's funny and makes me laugh. Then I remember that scores of people have died throughout history in the name of this deity, amongst many others. Sigh.
Texas wants the 10 commandments displayed in schools, presumably because they're important. Yet how many Texans are killing people and/or being killed (not to mention being neglected to death)? Apparently commandments are negotiable.
"Millions of people have died throughout history in the name of this deity". Uh-huh, and then there are the millions who died under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others too numerous too mention throughout history, because of their ideology or they just wanted power--nothing to do with any deity. Maybe people can just be really horrible, and those who try to believe that a loving God wants them to love others too follow more positive principles. "Tikkun olam"--"repairing of the world" in Judaism; "Whatever you do to the least of others you do to me"--Christianity; and I am sure there is something like that to cite in Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, but I don't know them.
Can the right also get serious for once. Those in Texas who were shot at have been able to find employment and build a life in Texas. If Texans did not want to hire them they would not be there.
Exactly. Illegal immigrants in Texas are not hiding. They don't have to. They know where to go daily to get picked up by construction companies, landscapers, real estate developers, cleaning services, etc. It is all happening in the open. All the talk about illegal immigrants is an act.
Well-said. We need people to do the work we can't or won't perform. We need them legally, so they are provided the fair wages and job protections afforded U.S. citizens. We need them to work hard, make money, then go home till the next "shift" starts. How to do that?
Bring back the Bracero program. Mexican citizens who wanted to work in the United States were granted seasonal (and renewable) work permits, came north, did the work (primarily picking crops), collected their pay, then went home. It wasn't perfect--Big Ag, then as now, abused the system to squeeze out more profits--but by and large it worked: Americans needed work done, Mexicans wanted to do it, and both sides profited from this legalized guest worker program.
It started during WWII and ended in the 1960s, but I'd like to see it reinstated in a modern form. I think offering seasonal work to all who want it, with a guarantee of annual renewal for good behavior, would greatly reduce illegal immigration, a win for both nations.
https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/the-bracero-program/
We still have between 1.7-1.9 jobs open for every able-bodied and unemployed American worker. We also have below replacement rate population growth. We're in the middle of a Boomer retirement wave. We NEED immigrants in this country for a number of economic reasons. The central bank is actively fighting wage-growth inflation in the services sector via base lending rate hikes as a result of inflationary pressures that accrue when employers have to raise wages to attract limited labor, which then gets passed onto the consumer via price growth to accommodate higher wages paid to employees.
YES! We NEED THEM! WHY is this so hard to grasp?!
I believe the answer to your question is тАЬNo. They cannot get serious about facts or reality, because they are only serious about fascism and hatred. Those are the twin engines flying that very serious plane.
We could reduce illegal immigration by 80% within six months if we really wanted to. All it would take is a new law; hire someone undocumented once, and it's $100K per incident. Twice, it's a million, and three times, it's prison for the heads of the companies. They'd suddenly get serious, and there would be no work. But that's not what they want. They want this to be like Prohibition; make the law on Friday, ignore it by Monday, except for the people who have no power who they'll beat up on periodically to keep up the theater.
(Not to say I approve of the above. I find it morally and practically abominable. But if they wanted to actually cut what they say they hate, it'd do that.)
If America didnтАЩt hire the undocumented weтАЩd have no food, construction, nail salons or hotel workers. There is a reason that all of the people in this tragedy had jobs. They are needed.
The Right are such hypocrites about this.
Exactly, I worked in personnel and we had to fingerprint and copy three IDs to prove a person had the right to work. If people are hiring illegals they are breaking the law, except for agricultural work which is exempt. Also, regulations for small business is different. Restaurants also have different laws. Small businesses can pay in cash. I don't hear anything about all the Asian illegals that come through the ports or the eastern Europeans either. Even though the countries are no longer Communist the people still get a free pass. But then they're white.
There really should be no exemptions just like there shouldnтАЩt for overtime, minimum wage laws, or unemployment. In fact, the people who need those the most are the jobs that are exempt!
Republicans on immigration: тАЬDo as I SAY, not as I DOтАЭ.
Actually, that motto applies to their entire cultural positions on just about everything.
In a sane world we could have humane, intelligent immigration reform that would benefit everyone. We almost did.
But no, that would take away the republicans favorite punching bag - the immigrant.
Cruelty is the point.
When Adam Serwer wrote "Cruelty is the Point" after Trump was in office for a while, the clarity of what he wrote hit me hard. He compared hate filled MAGA to the old photos of white people laughing and grinning like hyenas at the lynching of Black people. Cruelty feeds these people. Greg Abbott is no different. Two mothers killed in the slaughter outside Houston had thrown their bodies over their children. They died saving their babies. But filth like Abbott has to ring the racist bell. It's "wink-wink-nothing to see here", they're "illegal". The incandescent rage I feel toward these ignorant, hate filled excuses for humans runs deep.
Adam Serwer is one of my favorite writers at The Atlantic, and he's been spot on about MAGA since 2016. The cruelty is the point.
Ditto for liking Adam Serwer.
While I agree with what you say about Abbott and his ilk, donтАЩt let them harden your heart with hate. That is their goal. TheyтАЩre hoping to spread of hate and fear for money and power. We must stand up with love and empathy so we call out their selfish, cruel motives, but donтАЩt become like them in their ways of hate.
I will vote them out, and encourage everyone I interact with to do the same, but IтАЩm careful not to let evil into my heart because it can make a home there.
I wasnтАЩt talking about it from a superstitious тАЬmind of its ownтАЭ type thing. I was speaking about it becoming a way of thinking. It has been scientifically proven that those who write down 5 things they are grateful for at night begin to look for things during the day to be grateful for. I am just saying I donтАЩt want to become a person whose so cynical and full of hate, that it leads to shooting people who ring the doorbell (ring any bells?). ThatтАЩs it. Nothing superstitious about how the mind works.
I believe that Republicans have never had any intention of passing legislation to make life better for all Americans. The old Republican party was all about making the rich richer. The MAGAs finally realized this and rejected the old GOP. This is part of the reason for Trump's rise. Many of them also loved that instead of using dog whistles, he was overtly racist.
The GOP also learned with the Dobb's decision that getting their way on a wedge issue does not work to enhance their political power. I don't see them ever coming up with a solution to the immigration problem.
They arenтАЩt into offering solutions. That was the GOP in the BT. They just would rather make you angry and afraid of everything so youтАЩll vote for them: crime, LGTBQ, your neighbor, your schools, тАЬgroomersтАЭ and the woke mob, immigrants, non-church going hippies, SUCCESSFUL economies, and the list goes on. TheyтАЩll never run out of boogeymen. Once you step outside the scare mongering the scales fall from your eyes and you hear the desperation.
The "anti-woke", i.e. GOP, solution to the immigration problem? Reinstate slavery for White Christian slave owners only.
This is the sickest part or our "immigration debate". We want the workers here working. We just don't want them to have the protections or rights that a work visa would provide.
Yes, but it is not necessarily "we" who don't want to solve the immigration issue. Republicans clearly don't want to fix our immigration system because then they would no longer have that issue to bash Democrats with. I think Democrats would like to fix our immigration system to deal humanely as well as pragmatically with immigrants already here and make the system more workable for those who want to come.
Dems are far more sincere in their policy ideas than the GOP are.
I think you're right. I know many people want to fix the system in a way that help the economy and does right by the workers.
But I'm so jaded by the crowd who vote based on the prices of gas and eggs.
I disagree with your first person plural pronoun in your first and second sentences.
Primarily capitalists, anti-unionist and wannabe slave-owners as all want to save money by under-paying for work. Most customers, in diners or gas stations, or supermarkets, want somene to help them. It does not matter to many of us if the "helper" has "papers" or not when we want what we want as long as the "helper" is paid sufficiently for what (s)he does.
Only wannabe slave-owners (and others who do not want to deduct tax payroll since that can only be done if you pay good wages subject to governmental review via your declarations), and it cuts down your profits.
You think most customers (and voters) would endorse significant price increases for many categories of food, for the sake of employing only documented workers legally?
They can pay up or stop eating. Their choice.
We're paying top dollar for food anyway. I'd rather it go to the people picking the peppers and lettuce than the folks who write the press releases about how well Big Ag treats its "guest workers." Good pay and working conditions is the right thing to do for these workers, and just as important, ensures there will always be people lining up to pick our peppers and lettuce.
Indeed. But it's seen as politically dangerous.
We have some of the cheapest food in the world as percentage of income. Cheap food is why Americans are so far. ItтАЩs like griping about gas prices. We are all so spoiled.
"Cheap food is why Americans are so fat."
*Shitty junk food*/poor diets is (primarily) why so many Americans are so fat.
Same thing. High fructose corn syrup.
*fat
That is not what I wrote, unless you take "paid sufficiently for what (s)he does" to mean only documented workers.
Doesn't it have to mean that? Isn't avoiding the expenses of legally competitive wages, and health and safety protections, the whole point of hiring undocumented?
There are apparently not enough undocumented, workers so some states are rolling back child labor protections. I still remember the articles about the conditions in the meat packing plants during COVID, and I doubt they have improved.
No. You seem to equate "legally competitve" wages with "sufficient pay." And what do undocumented workers receive, anyway? Many of them have made a life for themselves in the US, pay taxes, and only worry that some MAGAhole will turn them in after 10-15 of being better citizens than the bosses who evade taxes when and wherever they can, see TFG and his tax returns.
We also want their mandatory pay roll tax donations.
Along those lines (and perhaps this is known), how did the shooter get his gun? I'm not an expert on Texas gun laws, but can't anyone sell a gun to anyone there? No background check, no citizenship requirement, etc.
For the group who lives in perpetual fear, shouldn't there be some fear about illegal immigrants easily getting guns? Sure, this time the victims were illegal immigrants (as if that should matter), but next time? The time after that? And if we do have to parse victims, it would be nice if the good Christians on the political right could give us a cheat sheet of which lives matter (as if we don't already know).
I thought the victims were legal immigrants, but the shooter was illegal - Abbot doesn't exactly take time to get all the facts.
Correct. The shooter was undocumented but the victims had green cards and the mother had just been approved for permanent residency.
Abbott is immoral.
It doesn't matter how he procured the weapon. If a crazy person shoots someone, if an undocumented resident shoot someone it cancels out any need to figure out how the weapon was procured. It almost cancels out the deaths of the people. I keep waiting, though, for the governor to say that the victims shouldn't have asked the shooter to stop shooting. They should have just shot him themselves as an auditory stand your ground defense.
Wait a minute, if the shooter procured the gun from a gun store, you donтАЩt think that bears some examination? And this person had the police called on them before for this. Are you saying that a known illegal immigrant in possession of an illegal fire arm wasnтАЩt arrested by the local police? What kind of state is Abbot running exactly?
Read it again. I had the same take on his first sentence, but you can tell by the end he's being sarcastic about that.
IтАЩm not critiquing him. I agree with him. IтАЩm adding to his line of attack for the Texas authorities.
Whoo, read your first sentence and was ready to GO. Glad I read the rest for your context. Full agreement from me.
Part of the problem with discourse these days is that no one reads beyond the first sentence. Thanks for reading farther.
It's sort of like when teachers would say "read the instructions, ALL of the instructions" before you start the test (do they say that anymore?). Read all the comment before figuring out if you agree or not!
God's hands at work? Perhaps they learned in church that their god works in mysterious ways to punish lawbreakers like illegal immigrants.
Guaranteed there is a preacher somewhere in TX saying that exact thing.
Depending on which part of the bible you're reading, god is quite vengeful. I've never really understood how a perfect, all-powerful being can have such stringent requirements for humanity's salvation, else condemned to suffer for all eternity, yet can be so petty and spiteful itself. Mysterious indeed.
In other words "Mysterious Ways" = "I don't know... Questions are hard!"
Well, I was 13 years old girl in Costa Rica when I decided that I would not go to church anymore. My parents were catholic but not dogmatic. They thought us to learn and read and develop critical thinking. They never pushed us to read the Bible and I am glad. They gave us books about history, literature, etc. We were three girls born in the 50"s. My Mom told us that we should be very scared of getting pregnant and that we should first go to university. She did not believe that a woman role was as a reproductive machine. Well, I am the oldest, became a NASA scientist, my sister became a civil engineer and was the leader on a crew of all men to build roads and bridges. My other sister became a dental surgeon. And we were poor, but at that time, The University of Costa Rica had a program. If you got straight A's, you did not pay tuition. That is the way we did it. I am so glad that my parents were so progressive. I tried to read the Bible once, it was awful, rape, incest, violence, crucifixion. God as a man, women blamed for everything at the beginning of whatever they thought the beginning was, etc. I am an agnostic and I will never change at 70. Extremist, dogmatic religion to me is toxic. I am talking about those. Not about moderate religious people who don't want to impose their beliefs on others.
The Christian God obviously suffers from multiple personality disorder, which only makes sense since they are supposedly three-in-one.
I find the idea that there is this powerful being that made everything (and that knows everything, including the future) has a bunch of laws (including dietary and clothing restrictions and detailed architectural designs for a temple) and that ACTUALLY PLAYS FAVORITES and that watches everything you do (and think) and is going to judge you for it and punish you FOR ETERNITY (for maybe 80-90 years of wrongdoing?) both incoherent and actually awful.
Oh, and he turned part of himself into the equivalent of an animal sacrifice, because I guess that is the only way that people can be forgiven by an all-powerful being that sustains and upholds the very universe.
Really?
And these people make fun of Scientologists.
That's the part I "love." An almighty deity had to incarnate himself as a human, so he could sacrifice himself to himself. If he didn't do that, he'd torture every human for literal eternity. Yup, makes sense.
Yes, it literally makes no sense unless you are a member of a society that believes that animal sacrifice is an effective way to propitiate powerful supernatural entities... and even then it doesn't actually make any sense, because the sacrifice is that he had to pretend to be one of us for about half a lifetime and then (not actually) die?
It's funny and makes me laugh. Then I remember that scores of people have died throughout history in the name of this deity, amongst many others. Sigh.
Texas wants the 10 commandments displayed in schools, presumably because they're important. Yet how many Texans are killing people and/or being killed (not to mention being neglected to death)? Apparently commandments are negotiable.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/21/texas-bill-ten-commandments-public-schools-religion/
1. "Scores of people have died"
Give or take millions upon millions.
2. Obviously all of our problems can be traced back to not having the commandments in schools and courthouses.
"Millions of people have died throughout history in the name of this deity". Uh-huh, and then there are the millions who died under Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and others too numerous too mention throughout history, because of their ideology or they just wanted power--nothing to do with any deity. Maybe people can just be really horrible, and those who try to believe that a loving God wants them to love others too follow more positive principles. "Tikkun olam"--"repairing of the world" in Judaism; "Whatever you do to the least of others you do to me"--Christianity; and I am sure there is something like that to cite in Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam, but I don't know them.
That reminds me of that Stalin quote "The murder of an individual is a tragedy but murder of a million is a statistic."
IsnтАЩt that just the market at work?
Well, letтАЩs take a look at how the GOP really feels about illegal immigration.
https://www.semafor.com/article/05/01/2023/the-republican-border-bill-is-in-limbo-over-a-crackdown-on-illegal-workers-everify-house-congress-title-42-mayorkas