Skepticum

Illinois House approved today a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain a special driver’s permit–a driver’s certificate for immigrants. If signed (and Gov. Blagoevich pledged he will sign this bill) Illinois will become one of a few states that allows illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses.

The opposition to this bill as represented by Illinois Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Greenville) was quoted in a Chicago Tribune article today with a angry and inane argument:

Why are you talking about a driving privilege for folks who can’t register to vote?” asked Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Greenville). “Let’s just knock down the borders and give everybody a certificate and say, ‘Hey, thanks for being here. You’re now a great American. It doesn’t matter by the means you got here, but you get all the rank and privileges all our ancestors paid dearly for.’

My dear reader, let me help you understand what’s wrong with this argument:

According to the USCIS there are 3 types of “aliens”. USCIS uses the term alien for people who were not born in the United States and I will use it in here as well for the sake of clarity and because the term “immigrant” has been tarnished lately. Another term is “foreign born” which is being used by the US Census Bureau. These 3 types of alien are:

a. Illegal aliens

b. Non-immigrant aliens. Non-immigrant aliens are those who are legally in the US but are not green-carded US residents (visitors, students, work-permit holders).

c. Immigrant aliens. Immigrant aliens are those who are in the process of becoming residents, who are green-carded residents or who are in the process of becoming US Citizens.  Only aliens in this last group are allowed to register to vote (with some exceptions). Green-card residents and US Citizens do not require a working permit and are allowed to work in the US legally.

Thus, there are legal immigrants who aren’t allowed to register to vote. The argument that those who can’t vote shouldn’t be allowed to drive is illogical. 16 year olds can obtain a driver’s license in the United States yet they can’t vote. Also, there are immigrants who pay taxes just like everyone else, yet they don’t have the right to vote. They should be allowed to drive on the roads that they pay to have paved.
When it comes to illegal immigrants, there are many ways illegals can drive on our roads, some ways being illegal, some legal– without a license, with a forged license, with a learner’s permit or with an international license.  Yet if there are any incidents it is hard to hold them responsible because theoretically these drivers don’t have insurance and there is no record of them in the US system of population records (bureaus, DL records, etc). Allowing illegal aliens to get a driver’s license does not mean anything in terms of rights to work, or vote, and recipients of the driving certificate won’t even be able to board a plane with it. It simply allows people to drive and get car insurance.

Stephens also claims that this will allow illegal aliens to “get all the rank and privileges all our ancestors paid dearly for.” What a shameful thing to say, considering that his ancestors probably came from Europe as immigrants, and this country was build by immigrants for immigrants. Also this land wasn’t given to the Europeans (although some Christian groups claim this is the promised land…) but was conquered by them.

Acevedo, a Chicago police officer, encouraged legislators to remember the struggles of their ancestors who settled in this country, recalling a phrase his grandmother used: “Nunca olvidas,” or, “Never forget.”

“I ask you today, don’t forget where you come from. It’s from the families of immigrants,” Acevedo said. “This country was built on the blood, sweat and tears of immigrants who came to this country looking for opportunity.”

My question is, where does this fear of the “immigrant” come from? The 9.11 dudes were in this country legally. The UK subway terrorists were UK citizens.

Jeremy Dean of PsyBlog  published on gender differences in persuasiveness of email versus face to face communication.

The researchers found that when there were low levels of oneness between men, email was a more effective way to communicate. Conversely, for women, higher levels of oneness made face-to-face encounters significantly more persuasive.

How can these results be explained? Women may not generally be easily persuaded over email because there is less opportunity to form relationships from which attitude changes can be built. Men, however, tend to be less competitive over email and are better able to concentrate on arguments presented, rather than being distracted by seeing the other man as a threat.

You can see full post here.

A federal judge today stroke down a 1998 U.S. law that “makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access “harmful” material”.

“Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection,” wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a four-week trial last fall.

The promoters of the 1998 Child Online Protection Act would like to see companies that don’t require proof of age in the form of a credit card or other type of validation, be criminalised for allowing access to what was vaguely defined as information “harmful to minors by contemporary community standards. ” And imagine having to use a credit card every time you want to access a web site. All those free websites, such as google.com coming at a price (a privacy price, convenience price, even security price, a lack of accessibility of information price etc)…

I cringe when I hear expressions such as “contemporary community standards.” Not sure what community the promoters of the Child Online Protection Act live in, but the Internet community has some pretty open standards. We might let Microsoft fool us that the standards aren’t and shouldn’t be open when in fact there is an entire open source community out there revolutionizing how we can share information.

Today was a good day for believers in freedom.

Image courtesy of Scott Liddell (http://scott.liddell.com) and morguefile.com

I found a fabulous post on the “professional creationist” and their “intellectual dishonesty” from Mike the Mad Biologist.

A must read, if nothing but for the following conclusion:

Yesterday, it was evolution is just a theory, today it is irreducible complexity, until that idea is spent, at which point, they will devise a new propaganda point. So we must continue to engage them, not solely on the terms of argument, but also their intellectual illegitimacy. This may be off-putting to some. Too bad. The stakes are too high to do otherwise.

This just out of the offbeat news files, 13 year old Utah girl wins $2,500 in the 32nd annual National Odor-Eaters Rotten Sneaker Contest.

Well I have absolutely no comment to this, except is there ever going to be a Lightdays Rotten Panty Contest, and who will win it? And will that contest be available for children only as well?

Image courtesy of clarita1000@gmail.com and morguefile.com

Presidential candidate Brownback (R Sen. Kansas) has come out (no pun intended) to support U.S. Gen. Peter Pace in his idea that homosexual acts are immoral.

Brownback was even able to make the most inane argument as to why Pace is right:

“We should not expect someone as qualified, accomplished and articulate as General Pace to lack personal views on important moral issues,” Brownback said. “In fact, we should expect that anyone entrusted with such great responsibility will have strong moral views.”

In other words if you are qualified, accomplished and articulate (we don’t know in what, but apparently Gen Pace is all of these…) and if you are entrusted with great responsibility you automatically have strong moral views. Apparently this donkey hasn’t heard of the numerous politicians and generals around the world and in history who were brilliant and entrusted with great responsibility yet they were as corrupt as can be. How about politicians who are not brilliant but are entrusted with responsibility? I wonder if there is anyone such in power today…

And does he remember Ted Haggard, another man entrusted with high responsibility (some believed Gd himself entrusted him with this responsibility), another donkey who believes homosexuality is immoral?

Haggard, who had a direct line to the White House (weekly calls with Bush and his advisers) said on Alexandra Pelosi’s new film, “Friends of God” (available on HBO On Demand) that Evangelicals have” the best sex life of any other group.” After revelations that Haggard was employing male prostitutes and meth as part of his sexual routines, we now know why he thought evangelicals have the best sex life, because his personal sex life was pretty hot. Also probably because when on meth one can feel very sexually involved, so to say…

The issue here is not that homosexuality is immoral, but that certain donkeys are homophobic, and power hungry. Politicians like Brownback militate on issues of absolute control, such as legislation of marriage, banning abortion, stricter movie rating regulations, and other. All of these issues are about government controlling decisions that otherwise are very personal, such as who one marries, how one decides to procreate, what movies one decides to watch.

It is despicable that politicians such as Brownback use irrational arguments to build their political careers. Is is ridiculous that he would imply that those who get elected or placed in leadership positions automatically deserve to be trusted. This is the same rhetoric that dictators used to brainwash their people in believing a leader deserves to be followed just because he’s a leader.

If we are to look at the history of dictatorship we can see that this type of rhetoric is vastly used in less-democratic societies and can have dangerous consequences to the essence of our freedom in America.