Pelosi is Confronted By Protesters Angry About Her Immigration Talks With Trump

[Anna Komnene]

The notion that undocumented people don't pay taxes is a total myth. Large numbers of them pay taxes, because you know, they actually care about America and want to contribute. They pay billions of dollars in federal and local taxes and they contribute billions of dollars to social security every year. Yet, they are ineligible to receive the vast majority of government services despite their contributions. Many undocumented people are basically altruistically donating their own money to pay for the services of American citizens. The real entitled people are the ones that think only American citizens should be eligible for services despite the contributions of millions of others to that pool of money.

[Anna Komnene]

https://itep.org/immigration/

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/19/news/economy/undocumented-immigrant-taxes/index.html

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2016-03-01/study-undocumented-immigrants-pay-billions-in-taxes

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/09/undocumented-immigrants-and-taxes/499604/

Mortimer, I'm just stating facts. Just because you want to believe something is true to fit your worldview doesn't mean that it has any basis in reality.

[Anna Komnene]

I never said they immigrate to America out of altruism. I said that paying taxes when you don't have to, knowing that you probably won't benefit from it very much is an altruistic thing to do. That doesn't mean that all of them do it for altruistic reasons, but some of them do. If you ever listened to anything they said or if you had ever actually spoken to one of them, you would know that a lot of DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants feel a profound gratitude for their situation and want to be able to contribute to prove themselves as worthwhile members of the community. Of course, there's lots of reasons why someone would pay taxes. Like the article indicated, it's a good idea to do that to build a positive history for yourself in case you ever need to prove that you'rw worthwhile to a judge, but it doesn't take away the fact that they contributed.

Also, you totally just read four articles and cherry picked the parts that you agreed with and conveniently ignored the parts that you didn't. I mean, they clearly state that it isn't just sales tax paid but also property tax, income tax, social security, and other self-reported taxes. And even if it's about half of them to report their taxes, that's a pretty huge number considering that they don't have to and that some of them might feel like it would be a big risk to themselves or their families if they do (not to mention that some of them might not even know that they can do that or how to do it).

[Anna Komnene]

Why does it seem like threads consistently get derailed by Mortimer when immigration comes up?

*bashfully gets back into line*

I'm sorry Virginia! Here I'll reply to the OP now.

I actually don't think it's a bad thing that some DREAMers are advocating for a better policy, and I certainly don't think it's "ungrateful." I don't think that any human being should have to be "grateful" to their elected leaders for enacting policies that will help them or their families or people that they care about live safer and happier lives. Democracy is about discourse, sharing of ideas, and arriving at solutions through engaging in that discourse. The point that we can't have discourse is the point that we stop being a democracy.

While I personally understand the gravity of the current situation and that we really need to take what we can get to save people's lives, that does not mean that we should suddenly give up on the things that are most important to us. If all people do is kowtow to Nancy Pelosi and kiss her feet, saying how amazingly wonderful she is, she won't have any reason to believe that there is anyone that wants her to keep fighting for better policies when she has the chance. She even said herself that she's happy that people are out there advocating for more. Of course, she's frustrated that they are being so confrontational and accusing about it because she's human, but I think that she understands.

I personally favor kindness and advocating for policy through kindness, as opposed to advocating for policy through nasty accusations, but I understand that I'm in a MASSIVE minority in having that view about politics. At the same time, there's this really troubling trend of people thinking that social mobilization for achieving better policy is somehow this really bad thing that should be frowned upon, and that we should instead worship our politicians as gods that bestow us with wonderful fruits. It would be great if that trend stopped asap.