War!

[Bosh]

Yes. Moderate Republicans never liked him at all.

I seem to remember a certain moderate Republican of southern Asian descent supporting Bush in the Republican presidential primary six years ago. I wonder why that would be

As far as immigration goes we've got the worst of both worlds: immigration laws that are very restrictive WRT slow-skilled immigration but precious little enforcement of said laws. I have person experience with having my visastatus held over my head by an unscrupulous employer and it wasn't nice, I had to put up with **** that I would have quit over in a minute if I were a citizen and I'm sure that things are much worse that way with illegal employees. This undermines all kind of standards that workers in America has attained.

The best course of action would be to raise the number of unskilled worker visas issued to a sane number and then crack down on employers of illegal immigrants HARD (it's stupid to focus enforcement against people who have nothing to loose like the idiotic "build a fence proposals). And while you're at it make things a lot easier to skilled immigrations and students who want to study in the states. The brain drain is a wonderful thing that has done the US no end of good and as things stand educated people who want to come to the US face FAR too much red tape and various costs.

And while you're at it make it easier for my wife to get a green card. As things stands there's no way I can show her my home town unless I move back to the states, re-establish residency and THEN start on the paper work

[Ned]

Re: Re: Re: War!

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly


This is exactly right. Ned's basic assumption is wrong (try to contain your shock) because he posits "conservative" as a monolith.

Dial it back 100 years, Ned: free market advocates and anti-immigration advocates were on opposite sides of the political fence; anti-immigration advocates also tended to be pro-union and pro-tarrif -- stances which, whatever their merits, at least have the virtue of consistancy.

The GOP has built their contemporary base by uniting fiscal conservatives with social conservatives, on the premise that they're all "conservative." This has a huge built-in fault line, which is now being exposed. This is not conservative versus moderate and, to the extent that its a war over Bush, it's a war in which each type of conservative is balming Bush on the other. Bush, for his part, has posed as both types of conservatives while failing to deliver anything to either one, so each camp certainly has a bone to pick with him.

(For what its worth: the same problems can be found among Democratic "liberals," who are also not a monolith; this battle is exposing the fault lines in the coalition between paleo-liberals, who tend to be protectionist and pro-union, and -- for want of a better word -- progressives, who tend to place international issues and concerns ahead of national interest. But since the Dems are out of power, this is getting less attention.)

What you're looking at, Ned, is something far more interesting that what you originally described. It's not a war between conservatives and moderates. It's a war to define conservativism.

Very thoughtful post, Rufus. I applaud you.

Big business types have always wanted immigrant labor because they work hard for less. Once it was the Irish and Chinese. Today it is the Mexicans.

Obviously, the Limbaughs of the Party are not in this group. He calls them, "blue bloods." Probably, they were the Whigs of old.

The "social conservatives" are the radical religious types that once fought slavery. They were the Radicals of old. Today, they fight godless ideologies like socialism and are at the forefront of the war on terror.

These separate branches of the Party go back to its founding roots.

When I was young, the two sides would fight each other royally. I think this was a major reason the party was out of power for more than 60 years. But, once Reagan was elected, the party seemed united. That unity is now fracturing.

Unless the party nominates a great leader like Reagan that once again can unite it, it probably will resume its minority status for a generation.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap


A man of color can't be racist?

What planet are you from Ben?

The same one as the whack liberals who made that crap up it seems.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Ben, your article is total bollocks. Illegal immigrants do not get any special privileges which citizens don't get. To say otherwise is at best uninformed and (more likely) at worst racist. Let's review the rubbish article you posted.

And while were at it let's have a look at how you mischaracterize it or completely miss its points. You're off to a good start already with the first paragraph. I've never heard anyone call Sowell a racist or uninformed. Seeing how he graduated from Harvard magna *** laude in 1958, got his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago and has written numerous books on economics, race in America, migration and culture etc. I find that hard to believe.

Originally posted by Oerdin
The first claim is that most Mexicans get affirmative action which is false.

He does not claim this.

Originally posted by Oerdin
Most affirmative action programs were ended in the 90's and in California (the state which had the most affirmative action programs) nearly all of them have been phased out in favor of extra help based upon income; meaning schools in poor areas will get additional funds based not upon race but based upon how poor the students attending that school are. It is race neutral. Colleges in this state cannot legally lower standards for one race in order to get more students of a certain race. The one area we do still see affirmative action is very limited in scope and in time; minority owned businesses can receive a 5% bonus to bidding on government contracts but that is pretty small and that bonus is limited to 5 or 10 years depending upon the exact classification (in order to last the whole ten years you must be a disabled military vet with a service related injury).

His claim is that Hispanics can and do receive affirmative action, which is true. Notice that he does not mention any single state or situation, which means that you again are rebuting the air.

Originally posted by Oerdin
The next garbage claim is that illegals get treated differently from citizens to get into the University of California or the California State University systems. The reality is this is entirely based upon state residency and any person who has lived in the state for 5 years (and can document it with tax returns using either a social security number or an individual taxpayer ID) is entitled to instate tuition. Citizen or noncitizen are treated the same and being a resident of the state of California is what entitles people to get instate tuition charges.

He says that illegal immigrants who graduate from H.S. in California get advantages that citizens from other states do not. This is true. You again rebut nothing.

Originally posted by Oerdin
There are no tax breaks allowed for illegal aliens in our current law. In fact they are required to prove they don't owe taxes so the reality is they have a higher bar to jump over compared to citizens. I'm just not seeing any special privileges here and show a bill which has zero chance of becoming law doesn't cut it, Ben.

When his entire purpose is to argue against these proposed laws it cuts it quite nicely though, especially since everything he has said about them is accurate.

Originally posted by Oerdin
Next we have the claim that illegals get away with breaking the law while citizens don't. Again this is false. Local police choose not to enforce dozens of laws (from marijuana possession, to running stop signs, and yes even asking for proof of legal residency) based entirely upon how local officials prioritize crimes. With over crowded prisons and local officials under court orders to release people due to over crowding the local officials have decided to concentrate resources on violent offenders and instead to over look some nonviolent crimes. If anything citizens get more breaks then illegals simply because there are more citizens then illegals by a 30:1.2 margin. Still not seeing the special privileges you've claimed.

He states that in many places in the U.S. local law prohibits the police from enquiring about someone's immigration status, or from reporting an illegal to the federal government. Thus this class of offense is treated differently than others, which is a special privilege. It doesn't apply everywhere, but it does apply in many places where illegal immigrants are concentrated.

Originally posted by Oerdin
Forging documents is a crime which is punished. Illegals don't get a free pass though this receives a lower priority from officials who are stretched thin. The claims made in the article are 1) a total lie about what the proposed bill says and 2) deliberately over looks that a proposed bill isn't law and that the author is claiming that illegals currently enjoy privileges citizens don't. That's simply a lie as most honest people will free admit.

Here's what he said: "Under a provision recently passed by the Senate, illegal aliens who forged Social Security cards not only get a pass, they get to collect Social Security benefits."

So he does in fact mention that this is a provision of the senate bill. He does not as you claim lie about what is in the bill, as news accounts I've read (NYTimes) say the same thing. He neither misleads (deliberately or not) anyone that this is a law already on the books. Again, his point is to argue against this legislation. As long as we are all hot to call people liars, perhaps you can explain what you were doing when you so mischaracterized what he said.

Originally posted by Oerdin
The rest of the article degenerates into a stupid political rant which has nothing to do with the debate at hand. Suffice it to say that even a moderately educated person can see that article as a transparent pack of lies. None of it adds up under even modest scrutiny.

The rest of the article is political opinion, and germain to the topic at hand. How can it degenerate from its status as a pack of lies? Well however you might explain that, it doesn't matter because the article isn't a pack of lies. If anything your post deserves that honor. But what can one expect from a less than moderately educated person?

[Sikander]

Another pack of lies / opinion column from Sowell on the immigration bill.

-------

BORDERING ON FRAUD



The immigration bill before Congress has some of the most serious consequences for the future of this country. Yet it is not being discussed seriously by most politicians or most of the media. Instead, it is being discussed in a series of glib talking points that insult our intelligence.

Some of the most momentous consequences -- a major increase in the number of immigrants admitted legally -- are not even being discussed at all by those who wrote the Senate bill, though Senator Jeff Sessions has uncovered those provisions in the bill and brought them out into the light of day.

How many times have we heard that illegal aliens are taking "jobs that Americans won't do"? Just what specifically are those jobs?

Even in occupations where illegals are concentrated, such as agriculture, cleaning, construction, and food preparation, the great majority of the work is still being done by people who are not illegal aliens.

The highest concentration of illegals is in agriculture, where they are 24 percent of the people employed. That means three-quarters of the people are not illegal aliens. But when will the glib phrase-mongers stop telling us that the illegals are simply taking "jobs that Americans won't do"?

Another insult to our intelligence is that amnesty is not amnesty if you call it something else. The fact that illegals will have to fulfill certain requirements to become American citizens is supposed to mean that this is not amnesty.

But let's do what the spinmeisters hope we will never do -- stop and think. Amnesty is overlooking ("forgetting," as in amnesia) the violation of the law committed by those who have crossed our borders illegally.

The fact that there are requirements for getting American citizenship is a separate issue entirely. Illegal aliens who do not choose to seek American citizenship are under no more jeopardy than before. They have de facto amnesty.

Yet another insult to our intelligence is saying that, since we cannot find and deport 12 million people, the only choice left is to find some way to make them legal.

There is probably no category of law-breakers -- from counterfeiters to burglars or from jay-walkers to murderers -- who can all be found and arrested. But no one suggests that we must therefore make what they have done legal.

Such an argument would suggest that there is nothing in between 100 percent effective law enforcement and zero percent effective law enforcement.

The reverse twist on this argument is that suddenly taking 12 million people out of the labor force would disrupt the economy. No one has ever said -- or probably even dreamed -- that we could suddenly find all 12 million illegal immigrants at once and send them all home immediately. This is another straw man argument.

The real question is what we do with whatever illegal aliens we do find. Right now, there are various communities around the country where local officials have a policy of forbidding the police from reporting illegal immigrants to federal authorities.

Why are people who are so gung ho for punishing employers so utterly silent about needing to punish government officials who openly and deliberately violate federal laws?

Employers, after all, are not in the business of law enforcement.

If some guy who runs a hardware store or a dry cleaning business hires someone who shows some forged documents, why should the employer be fined for not being able to tell the difference, when government officials who can tell the difference are not doing anything -- or are even actively obstructing federal laws?

Putting unarmed national guardsmen on the border is another cosmetic move, a placebo instead of real medicine. The excuse is that it is not possible to train more than 1,500 border patrol agents a year. Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.

You can put a million people on the border and it will mean nothing if those who are caught are simply turned loose and sent back to try again tomorrow -- or perhaps later the same day.

To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com. Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

[Ned]

I think the American people become very suspicious of a bill that is being touted to the people with disenguous arguments and misrepresentations. Luckily, Limbaugh and the House see through the BS and outright lies and are rallying the troops.

The Republican "Moderates," including Bush, are going to be the big losers here. McCain, if he ever seriously had presidential ambitions, has just sunk his own boat.

[GePap]

I doubt Sowell would back the tax increases necessary tof und the new prisons and prison guards necessary to gaurd over imprisoned illegal immigrants. I also doubt border states and their court systems would survive a massive influx of new court cases, and no court in the US would allow people to simply be imprisoned.

And some of his numbers don;t make sense.

For example, "illegals" according to him make only 24% of the agriculture workforce, meaning that 76% are Americans, so why couldn;t the 24% figure be replaced, right?

THe question to ask is, which 24% of agriculture jobs are held by illegals. These people are essentially concentrated in certain jobs, like farm hands, and probably less visible in a lot of industrial agricultural concerns. Certainly the majority of people working in some chicken factory, or industrial butcehr shop will be legal immigrants or citizens. But what abou8t the people on the field picking lettuce? You know, jobs that pay far less than the minimum wage.

Oh, and this bit:

Another insult to our intelligence is that amnesty is not amnesty if you call it something else. The fact that illegals will have to fulfill certain requirements to become American citizens is supposed to mean that this is not amnesty.

But let's do what the spinmeisters hope we will never do -- stop and think. Amnesty is overlooking ("forgetting," as in amnesia) the violation of the law committed by those who have crossed our borders illegally.

The fact that there are requirements for getting American citizenship is a separate issue entirely. Illegal aliens who do not choose to seek American citizenship are under no more jeopardy than before. They have de facto amnesty.

Is laughable. Unless Sowell is a hypocrite, I doubt him and his fellow travellers woul;d ever stop demaning that illegal immigrants not be prosecuted. Being in the country is a violation. Last time I looked, paying a fine is the most common punishment for a violation. I don't see people imprisoned for speeding. Is illegal immigration a worse crim than speeding? Personally, I find someone who risks their own lives for work less morally objectionable than someone who endangers their lives and everyone elses because of impatience.

Those who do not seek citizenship will still be forced to live under the radar. How is that amnesty? Idiot.