>>>Fair enough. Next time you won't forget, because you'll know I'm out there :).
>>
>>As long as you're not in Outer, Mongolia, we're good... <g>
>
>Speaking of which, how did you get the Mongolian visa? I've heard you have to wait for years. But that's OK.

I'v been on the list for over a decade. I just followed the rules.

>>You're experience are unique
>
>You are kidding me, right? There were about ten million of us who went through the whole story. I don't feel so unique at all.

Still unique. When you compare 10,000 to 300,000,000 it is.

>>but the government is not out to get us all the time. They're like a family; disfunctional, but trying to do the best they can for the most part.
>
>The only difference between our cases is the source of the propaganda. In mine, it was Milošević and his state government (the federal one was pretty much toothless by that time). In yours, it's the right wing echo chamber, with its outlets on Fox, Clear Channel talk radio and a few other places. While the article was pretty much neutral when you read all of it, the heading was not, and the heading for the thread that you pulled out of that was even less. In my case, I fell for his propaganda for a few weeks until I noticed the elephant in the room (he was that good).
>
>Always happy to smash propaganda - at your service.
>
>>>My wife used to work as a health inspector, so I learned more than I wanted about how government works. The law of governmental procedure is one law, period. It proscribes how things are done, the whole due process, which is then applied across the board. It's not that every governmental body has its own book of rules. The legal system is completely different over there. I'm still coming to terms with just trying to understand the difference in approach, but it seems it can be roughly described as deductive vs inductive.
>>
>>I still think that you are missing the fact that they are not citizens or here legally. We have basic humanitarian responsibilities like we have in our prison system, but beyond that, they are criminals, and should be treated as such.
>
>The above paragraph, if you forgot, was about the speed at which the government should handle legal requests for visas, immigration etc. This line of conversation started with your "don't want to wait 10 years for a visa - too bad".

It was, but it was also about the inequality of citizens vs non-citizens. Unless I'm mixing my paragraphs.

>It also has some influence on the expectations of illegals. When they notice that INS takes years to solve a legal case, they can figure out that the same institution can't be much faster solving illegal cases. And, besides, some of the illegals may have tried to come legally, but couldn't put their lives on hold for so long.

Then their lives should be in their home country.

>>>Or, the businesses would understand that they need to buy new laws, because the policy of buying the non-enforcement of existing ones has led to this.
>>
>>Now, on this buying of new laws, we don't disagree. That's why we have lobbyists.
>
>That's what I meant - and I don't care what they call the retail.