Thank you for clarifying. I do agree that Obrador will cause major problems for the United States. I am not so much worried about him allowing terrorists enter into the US as I am worried about him trying to start a revolution. With all the talk of “Reconquista” already floating around, it will be just a matter of time when members of the Communist Latin Community in California show their faces on a grand scale. One problem with socialism is that it only kindof works in nations of educated people. The reason why is that with the government controlling everything; there is a greater chance for mischief.Many anti-liberals (left-wingers) claim that socialism does work, because it works in Norway. Norway receives a lot money from oil. It also has a very, very, strict immigration policy. If oil is deemed obselete, that nation is SOL, no more progressive socialist paradise. Good old Chavez has ruined Venezuela’s oil industry already. I have an issue with many people on the US left supporting Chavez. Hugo openly supports Iran, Syria, and Libya. He was the only foreign leader of note to visit Iraq while Saddam was in power. He has had advisors who have denyed the existence of the Holocaust and blasts the “Jewish Financial Institutions”(Norberto Ceresole). The Jewish community has experienced persecution in Venezuela. The Jewish population has been cut in about half since Chavez has been in power. Many progressives still view him as a hero because he is in opposition to Bush. I guess in their eyes anyone really is better than Bush, even if the leader believes in National Socialism and hates Jews.

Hurricane567:

For legal immigrants, it can take many years to enter the
US. Illegal aliens want to enter the US now. Based on current immigration law, these aliens would not be allowed in legally.

Those 19 people that killed 3000 didn’t cross the Mexican border.

You meant that for me? Hell, that’s what I’ve been saying all along. Nobody bothers talking about the illegals that come from anywhere BUT the Mexican border. My only point was that someone like Obrador may not mind having people like that slip through his country to come here. If not Islamic terrorists, then certainly there are plenty of others from our own hemisphere who bear ill will towards us. And how about the flow of drugs into the country, if nothing else? Obrador definitely won’t be working with us in that regard.

Look, I’m as frustrated as anyone with the rhetoric being thrown around. I’ve been attacked myself for calling things as I see them–there is racist rhetoric to be found in blog comments at some of the fever swamps, and some of the more hardcore immigration fanatics have either ignored such rhetoric because the yahoos support their basic points, or they’ve egged it on. All I’m saying is that those yahoos really don’t represent us, and I regularly call out those who don’t nip it in the bud. How they manage to operate a computer to excrete their crap is a mystery to me.

Radical:
Bush can’t just randomly take guards from other states and put them in Cali, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and he needs the consent of the Governors of those states to deploy the troops.

WRONG. You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Every single member of the National Guard is required to perform annual training. They don’t necessarily–or even USUALLY–perform that training close to home/in their home state. Sgt Schmo in Chicago may have his AT in Florida or Kansas or whatever. If they’re going to do AT anyway, what’s the problem with putting them to work in TX/NM/AZ/CA? I was in the military; I do know. And I’ll tell you what else: the AT they do isn’t something that they can’t change to a different location or function, either. It simply is NOT a big deal.

he’s only now after 5 1/2 years realizing their is a problem on the border.

Wrong again. Bush has had immigration plans for YEARS; it’s only been in recent months that suddenly the PUBLIC decided it was an issue. Look it up.

Furthermore “the base is up in arms?” Wrong. I’m not “up in arms.” I am the base. I don’t sit out elections like the assholes in 1992 to “teach Republicans a lesson.” Fat lot of good that got them. It’s single-issue spoiled toddlers who “won’t get fooled again,” not the base.

I have no patience at all for that nonsense. I’m not interested in your “estimates,” either. Do you advocate deporting blacks too? After all, they make up the majority of the prison population. And while we’re at it, how about deporting all MEN? They’re responsible for the VAST, overwhelming majority of crime.

I’m not for “amnesty” or soft on illegal immigration, either. The difference is, my opinion is not based on ignorance and hysterical fear.

Mitzi:
Today I saw President Bush referred to as “El Presidente”
Heh. Probably a hundred times, and they’ll say there’s nothing objectionable about saying that. How’s “wetbacks” strike you? I actually had some idiot trying to DEFEND the use of the word “wetback” in comments at my site! These fools have no clue. The more crap they fling like that, the more people they turn away from their point of view. Bunch of f’n amateurs.

Even though Rick says your first post on this thread as idiocy, you make good points. I am glad you didn’t start off flinging insults. I have to agree with Rick on a couple points. The issue is assimilation. I hear people touting the “Scandanavian Utopians” as the liberal ideals, but how many of those so called European nations have an immigration policy anywhere near as liberal (both definitions) as ours? There is a reason why they don’t let anyone that wants to come enter the US. Another issue is that it is hypocritical to those who want to enter the US through legal channels. My father came from India legally in 1969(yes that makes me brown). He had to be one of the best in his industry to even have chance to come to America. I admit many ignorant right-wingers stamp their feet and scream, “Dey took r jerbs!!!!!”, but it isn’t just white people that are against illegal immigrants. As horrible as it sounds but many inner city African Americans hate the idea that Mexicans can come in and do the same job for less. While it is true capitalists like myself do believe that we need the cheap labor, we also realize they are breaking the law. On this issue, it is hard to make everyone happy. Many do not realize this but people sometimes misuse the term capitalism. Not all Republicans are capitalists. Many of them are actually merchantilists. They have to follow that economic philosophy if they want to be re-elected. One example is the tariff that Republicans placed on cheaper foreign steel. It was designed to protect industry not overrall commerce. Ironically, Bush wants to institute a guest worker program. It is capitalist in nature, but at the same time he stole a page from the French. It appears to you that there is less sanity on the right because it would go against your principles if they appeared reasonable. Both political extremes tend to find flaws quicker on the other side. Irrationality and absurdity is a multipartisan issue. For instance look what Howard Dean said at the CBN. Gay and Lesbian Democrat supporters said it wasn’t the first time he made that “slip up”. Is he stupid? No, he was pandering to garner more votes. That is where the absurdity exists.

Beth,

Those 19 people that killed 3000 didn’t cross the Mexican border.

The economy does not need workers in the least. It has tons of unemployed or underemployed workers. They are called minorities and teenagers.

That is an unqualified lie.

What employers want is simply to pay Third World wages for easily exploited cheap labor. To ascribe racist motives to the Black, White, Asian, and Hispanic working Americans who are fighting to protect their families from the future of net downwards social mobility you have mapped out for them is a filthy slur and lie.

You’re right in saying both Bush and Reagan were pragmatists. I would have to say however that Reagan felt the pulse of conservatives a lot better and was able to finesse their disappointment.

We all remember the James Watt plea “Let Reagan be Reagan” - as if he could be anything else! What Watt was really saying was let Reagan’s rhetoric match his actions. The conservatives during Reagan’s terms were mad at James Baker, Don Regan, and David Gergen because they thought that those guys and other moderates were holding back Reagan from doing some really whacky stuff. Reagan ended up doing what was possible while still making it look like a victory for conservatives.

Bush as President with his own majority in Congress isn’t given that same benefit of the doubt. These “full loaf or nothing” Republicans don’t look to Bush’s aides for the answer to thier frustration, they blame the President himself. In a very important way, Bush has been his own worse enemy on this and it’s probably too late to change.

I certainly never assumed that nativism drives the entire right, but the more I look for rationality, the less I find,,,so I begin to wonder.

Even you, who seems to want to disassociate yourself from the nastiness, turns around and starts ranting about the coming apocalypse if Obrador wins the election - and I really gotta start wondering whats going on here.

If anything, having a Mexican leader that is more focussed on uplifting the poor, rather than trickling down to them, may well help to lessen the economic disparity between our countries, and thus lessen the incentive to migrate (probably marginal lessening, granted). Fox is completely tapped into the RW corporate mentality that sees Mexican workers as part of the Greater American Economic Structure. Obrador would probably be more inclined to build a Mexican based economy, rather than see Mexico as appendage to the US. For immigration issues, that may be more to your liking.