Nice first steps

[Elvado]

by Barack. He advocates less rstricitive vetting of foreign nationals applying for student visas. Good idea in the post 9/11 world to lessen the scrutiny on those who might want to do us harm.

Also announces "responsible" plan to pull all US forces by 3/31/08.

What is responsible about telling our enemy to hold out for 14 months and we'll quit?

On a more positive note, Joe Bden (unless someone else actuall wrote it first) says Barack is clean, well spoken and mainstream. Hey Joe, is that as opposed to all of the other African American folks you know? Biden's comment speaks volumes as to the dismissive condescending view the Democrat Party has toward minorities.

[Cambridge]

Links please.

This is note to all posters. Please provide links to all stories so that we know what the hell you are talking about.

[Elvado]

See Barack's campaign website for the "responsible plan"

Read the other comment in Phila Inquirer. Do not have time to do your homework.

[Cambridge]

vadie said:

See Barack's campaign website for the "responsible plan"

Read the other comment in Phila Inquirer. Do not have time to do your homework.

Touchy touchy. I'm just asking you to cite a source. I had read about the withdrawal date, but I just spent 30 minutes trying to find the other nugget. I just wanted a breadcrumb to know where to look, because I agree that it sounds troubling to say the least.

Oh and thanks for your dismissive, arrogant and derisive attitude. You are a gentleman and a scholar. I look forward to future encounters.

[Deleted]

vadie said:

by Barack. He advocates less rstricitive vetting of foreign nationals applying for student visas. Good idea in the post 9/11 world to lessen the scrutiny on those who might want to do us harm.

Nice line of logic: since many of the 9/11 hijackers came here on student visas, let's make it difficult to get student visas, and in the process, make things wildly difficult and tedious for the other 99.99999% of student visa applicants who actually want to come here legitimately.

The same logic is the reason why we have the stupid TSA rules about liquids. ("Hey! Someone wanted to use liquid bombs to blow up planes, so let's ban liquids on planes!"). Brilliant. I certainly feel safer knowing that everyone's toothpaste and shaving cream are in clear, one-quart-or-smaller-Ziploc bags and are being x-rayed separately. And when my German professor friend who's lived in the US for 5 years gets detained every other time he's returning here from Europe, I breathe a sigh of relief that our visa regs are as restrictive as they are....

If Al Qaeda wants to get people into the US, they'll figure it out, student visas or not. They're not stupid.

[Cambridge]

I can't find the story on the Philadelphia Inquirer's website. I have searched for Obama, student, visas and various other keywords and can't find any story. As this is a very important issue, I would ask you to please provide an article date or title.

[Elvado]

Don't get me started on the concept of why it should be very difficult to come here at all.

It's just about time for a "No Vacancy" sign to be hung on the Statue of Liberty.

As for Al Quaeda's ability to get past restrictions, I agree with you, they are smart and evil. That doesn't mean you take steps to make it easier. Rats are evil; that does not mean you should leave garbage around your home and have holes in your walls, does it?

We need to close and protect borders, case closed.

[Cambridge]

Lock this thread up. It all belongs in the Obama thread.

[HoyaNyr320]

cambridgehoya said:

I can't find the story on the Philadelphia Inquirer's website. I have searched for Obama, student, visas and various other keywords and can't find any story. As this is a very important issue, I would ask you to please
provide an article date or title.

Elvado doesn't believe in sources. After all, it is "your homework" to fact-check his claims. It is about time we put a "no vacancy" sign up on this message board too.

[Badger Hoya]

vadie said:

Don't get me started on the concept of why it should be very difficult to come here at all.

It's just about time for a "No Vacancy" sign to be hung on the Statue of Liberty.

As for Al Quaeda's ability to get past restrictions, I agree with you, they are smart and evil. That doesn't mean you take steps to make it easier. Rats are evil; that does not mean you should leave garbage around your home and have holes in your walls, does it?

We need to close and protect borders, case closed.

Revise your statement -- it should be more difficult for some people to come here than others. For example, it should be more difficult for an unemployed young Middle Eastern male to enter/immigrate to this country than a 30 yr old Canadian woman with a Master's degree.

In other words, better risk management as opposed to wholesale shutting of borders. Because frankly, we need more of those Canadian women in this country these days.

[Deleted]

vadie said:

Don't get me started on the concept of why it should be very difficult to come here at all.

It's just about time for a "No Vacancy" sign to be hung on the Statue of Liberty.

As for Al Quaeda's ability to get past restrictions, I agree with you, they are smart and evil. That doesn't mean you take steps to make it easier. Rats are evil; that does not mean you should leave garbage around your home and have holes in your walls, does it?

We need to close and protect borders, case closed.

Yeah, let's do that. Just imagine: if we had done this years ago, maybe we could have kept Dikembe Mutombo out of the country...that would have been fantastic.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Premise: If we, as a country, wish to promote our national interests anywhere other than our own states and territories, we must create and maintain good will with other nations and peoples.

• Maintaining good will requires being a good visitor abroad and treating our visitors well here.
  
• An important source of foreign visitors is students; many of who -- especially those who attend G'town, especially in the SFS -- end up in decision- and policy-making positions in their home countries.
  
• Based on their experience here, they can either help us promote our national interests or hurt us. My guess is that we would like those people in particular to have a good experience with us.
  
• Making their experience to get here and while they're here more tough and cumbersome than it needs to be makes it more likely they'll harbor poor feelings toward our country, and less likely they'll support us.
  

Conclusion: As long as Obama's proposal doesn't sacrifice legitimate national security concerns, I'm for it. Making it tougher for students to come here -- by itself -- is counterproductive.

Additional questions: How would clamping down on students ease overall immigration pressures (i.e. address your "no vacancy" issue)? What percentage of students here on a visa end up staying for a long time or forever illegally or illicitly? What percentage is that of the total immigrant population in a year or in total? I may need to "do my homework" to answer that, but I doubt the number is high enough to make tougher visa restrictions part of the solution.

I'm an advocate of less restrictive vetting of many things, because many processes can be made less cumbersome without sacrificing their effectiveness -- and long vetting processes often make things worse, because people can "pass the buck" or blame things on some unseen other up or down the chain, while at the same time relying on those unseen others to accurately and reliably do their part. Long, drawn out vetting processes do not by themselves "get it right" or "keep al Qaida out" (they do make people feel like they have authority, make it look like they're doing something important, and give them "turf" to defend).

I'm not saying vetting is bad; quite the contrary, vetting is important in a well-functioning government for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to transparency, accountability, proper levels of input into decision-making, checks-and-balances, and accuracy. But on the margin, simply making it more difficult to come here because of restrictive vetting doesn't do any good for anyone. If anything, it hurts us by giving people a reason to dislike us.

Like Badger pointed out, a better way is risk management based on articulable criteria and, of course, not being jerks to honest, legitimate people who want to come to our great country.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

badgerhoya3 said:

it should be more difficult for an unemployed young Middle Eastern male to enter/immigrate to this country than a 30 yr old Canadian woman with a Master's degree.

In other words, better risk management as opposed to wholesale shutting of borders. Because frankly, we need more of those Canadian women in this country these days.

Revise your statement - we know nothing about the male immigrant - if he is fleeing political oppression and meets the status of a refugee then let's take him - that's the humane thing to do.

Overall thought it must be interesting to live in Elvado's world where you get to decide that American fetuses are worth protecting but third world immigrants that are coming to this country are not. Very interesting moral stance.

[Elvado]

I'm waiting for someone to point out that my facts were incorrect.

Oh that's right, you can't. I believe in the integrity of those on this Board. I don't post unless I've read it, or heard it firsthand.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

vadie said:

I'm waiting for someone to point out that my facts were incorrect.

Oh that's right, you can't. I believe in the integrity of those on this Board. I don't post unless I've read it, or heard it firsthand.

I'm waiting for you to respond to my comments about the moral stance that allows you to hold the positions you do regarding your valuation of a fetus over a refugee.

[Elvado]

I don't value a fetus (your term) over a refugee. I do absolutely value and hold sacred the life of a baby, born alive. Nor do I value a fetus (your term) over a currently living American citizen. I believe it to be our duty as Americans to protect all of our citizens, even those born in late term (or partial birth ) abortions. I presume when you use the term fetus, you are suggesting less than a fully formed human life. I refer to babies, born alive and left to die. There is a difference.

As for immigrants, from whose stock I come, I believe we should take care of Americans first.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

vadie said:

I don't value a fetus (your term) over a refugee. I do absolutely value and hold sacred the life of a baby, born alive. Nor do I value a fetus (your term) over a currently living American citizen. I believe it to be our duty as Americans to protect all of our citizens, even those born in late term (or partial birth ) abortions. I presume when you use the term fetus, you are suggesting less than a fully formed human life. I refer to babies, born alive and left to die. There is a difference.

As for immigrants, from whose stock I come, I believe we should take care of Americans first.

Thank you for confirming that your values stop at the borders.

[Elvado]

Congrats on the oversimplification.

Please help me out here. If you have a mess in your own yard and all over your neighborhood, whose do you clean first?

P.S. Please point out my factual misstatement.

[HealyHoya]

vadie said:

I'm waiting for someone to point out that my facts were incorrect.

Oh that's right, you can't. I believe in the integrity of those on this Board. I don't post unless I've read it, or heard it firsthand.

What facts?

[Deleted]

vadie said:

If you have a mess in your own yard and all over your neighborhood, whose do you clean first?

So, Iraq is in our yard, but New Orleans is not.

Got it.