Bill O'Doofus is castigating Bank of America right now for offering illegals credit cards. Of course, Bill doesn't want to come out and say that he doesn't want illegals to have economic opportunities because he wants to make their lives as miserable as possible so they'll get out, so instead he beats the terrorism horse again.
Like, apparently 9/11 hijackers used CREDIT CARDS to buy their airline tickets! (As opposed to gold bullion?) Of course, some of them were also here legally, but we aren't concerned with pesky details like that. The point is that illegal aliens could buy ANYTHING with these cards, and all illegal aliens are potential terrorists. Hey Bill, why not have the government work with the credit card companies to flag suspicious purchases instead of subtly implying that the only way to keep America safe is to keep illegals penniless?
The guest, Jon Hoenig, was a bit of a yutz ("If Mahmood whatever wants a credit card, yeah, there's a problem, but what do we care about what Pablo or Carlos are doing?"), but he did make some quasi-decent points- using terrorism as a stick to beat the illegal alien issue to death is a particularly lame argument. Hoenig and O'Reilly then proceeded to get into an argument over the old "We're a country of immigrants/Yeah, but they weren't illegal" chestnut. Hoenig points out that before the 1920s, there wasn't any such thing as illegal immigration. O'Reilly skirts the moral issue by sarcastically saying our immigration laws should revert to 1819.
The best part of the segment was O'Reilly saying everyone should close their B of A accounts- "not because of what they're doing, but because they wouldn't come on the show." In response, I propose a counter-boycott: go get a B of A card! It just might be worth the trouble of switching banks to piss Bill off.
2 comments:
terrorism issues aside, illegal aliens are committing a criminal act by being here... makes it a little dubious for a bank to be marketing to them
what's next, savings accounts for arsonists?
Valid point, no question. Again, it comes back to whether we view this as a serious crime or not. I'll admit that marketing campaign targeted at criminals does make me feel a little strange. On the other hand, a campaign focused on people who download music illegally or smoke marijuana wouldn't put me off- nor would the idea of a bank offering potheads a credit card make me outraged.
I'm willing to consider the argument that illegal immigration is a serious problem from a legal/societal perspective, and perhaps in that regards there is something questionable with this campaign (insofar as it's encouraging illegals to keep coming and enabling them to live here). Its when people try to phrase this debate as a moral one and/or avoid the whole issue by bringing up things like terrorism that my respect (and attention) go out the window.
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