Velociworld

Status quo ante, indeed. But many of these people are taxpayers - at least, the ones who aren't working off the books. I'm less concerned with the purported "economic drain" than I am with the idea that - unlike past generations of legal immigrants - the horde of Mexican illegals is not trying especially hard to assimilate themselves into the base American culture.

They need to learn English; they need to start watching a lot of reality television; they need to start mouthing off to teachers and other authority figures; they need to stop going to church except for once or twice a year; they need to knock off the tacos and gorditas and eat at McDungheap's; they need to start saying "this sucks" and other Fellatio-Related Expressions - in short, they need to act like the rest of us Americans.

Big picture...think big picture because there is so much more to this than meets the eye...

http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php?id=P3023
"What we're talking about, ladies and gentlemen, is the nationalization of work, itself."

Bullshit, Velocijefe.

Your attempt at pragmatism fails, just as soon as an(don't hold your breath waiting)honest media* [oxymoron alert!].... reports on the facts of the matter, going all the way back to Kennedy's '65 malfeasence in the matter.

People are for the most part, not actively supportive of millions of illegals in our midst, other than they're "in the ether" given by the smoke generated by the man behind the green curtain. You know, the one we're supposed to ignore.

And that ether is what actively denies Joe Citizen the knowledge that the Kenneturd engineered the roots of all this in the '65 bill. They deny Joe Citizen with in-depth knowledge of the costs of the illegals on our taxes, health care and education systems.

Worse, they project denial that these people adversely affect our culture. And our future.

Joe Citizen will truly be pissed should the day come when the lights come on, and what needs be known, is known.

Don't blame the present apparent passivity only on the greed or passivity of Good Ol' Joe Citizen, even though he's due blame enough for his economic advantage-taking. But when he learns that his short term savings in the form of cheap framing and lawnmowing bites him in the ass in later social costs.....

....Joe's gonna be on the warpath.

And for example. I personally TODAY WITNESSED no fewer than FIVE formerly political-LESS co-workers, call and send faxes to their U.S. Senator and Congressional Reps on this very subject.

The assholes in D.C. want us to take this shit as you so eloquently put it. Status Quo ante.

Call their bet, call their office, send your own got damned fax.

If you don't, you oughta be dragged off and shot! [/acidman]

Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX

Whoa, Jim. I never said most people actively support the illegals. I said they've been here, we've known it, held no one accountable, and only now get in a red-fanged rage. Reaped what we sowed is what we did.

I'm not being pragmatic. Just jaundiced. Because it isn't going to get fixed. Better to give the little gangbangers Holy Bibles and the lyrics to 'Onward Christian Soldiers' in English, because we really should draft them and send them to fight jihadists.

Also, I resent the potential dissolution of talent in Major League Baseball as a result of this.

Like all immigrants, America will absorb their kids and turn them into true Americans. Then they can bitch about the Government with the rest of us.
Bitching about everything is the American Way.

Somehow we are employing 12 million illegals and have record unemployment with a booming economy and I am supposed to buy that these people are the end of America? Illegal Chinese labor didn't end it in the 1800s, and these people will be absorbed. So they wave Mexican flags around, big deal. Every ethnic group loves their country of origin. I am looking at you, Irish laddies and Oktoberfest revelers.

Yeah, well, I'll be the first to admit we fucked up the Irish Question. But I wasn't around to keep 'em out.

Why a new bill when the feds will not enforce the laws that are already on the books?

Sad but true.....guess the cost of doing my lawn and cleaning my house is going to go up....damn. What I really believe is that we need to shut the border down NOW. Enough is enough. And I am sick of those fools in DC continuing to ignore the laws that they make but expect me to follow the laws. It's almost enough to not want to vote or move to Idaho and join one of those weird groups.

Well, LeeAnn, if the sex is hot enough I'm doing lawns for free. Embrace the barter!

Veloci-dude,
You've hit the nail on the head. And, you've shown you've got balls, cabrone. It takes a lead pair to state the obvious these days.

Specifically, I liked that you overtly de-link normalization from border enforcement. It bifurcates the issue into one focused on documentation like Z-Visas, National ID's and voluntary chip-implants, and another, more tricky one which touches global nerves, like the UN-heralded right of migration, and the shrinking status of the nation-state in an increasingly transnational global order.

I support the bill's overall direction for two reasons. First, it recognizes that immigration is a two-rail problem and it limits itself to one of the rails. It isn't stated, but normalization is the meta-goal of this legislation, and for a good reason: it answers the larger, looming question of maintaining high stores of human capital in a nation that is experiencing dropping birthrates. Put another way, America could use a blood-infusion, and the bill provides it.

Second, I think that normalization takes some pressure off of the sticky border-enforcement issue. Shoring up the first rail allows the enforcement debate to simmer at a more gentle temperature - until a trigger forces the issue, like say, the LAT does a feature on Latin American Gang violence in San Diego.

'Till then, thanks for rocking the boat a little.

steveaz, velociman what do we do with 25-40 million illegals that this amnesty attracts? Since the border will not be secured, the fact that these criminals got a pass will encourage more. Just like these came after the 1986 amnesty.

You do realize that, as a group, illegals commit 3 times the number of violent crimes that citizens do, right? If follows that they would, too. They broke our immigration laws, and were unpunished. Many drive without licenses, and go unpunished. They commit crimes, flee to Mexico, or points south, and get away with their crimes scot free. So why won't they commit violent crimes? They have no incentive not to do so.

And forgiving these criminals will invite more, just as it did in the 60s, and 80s.

Besides, if this was just about not enough hands for our jobs, why were illegals coming here in the 60s, in the middle of the Baby Boom?

Plenty of illegals come here because they encouraged to do, not by corrupt businessmen, or our bountiful welfare (although both attract plenty), but by their home countries. Why should Mexico, or Guatemala, or Ireland develop freer economies with less corruption or government controls, when they just sent folks off to America to make money?

Do you honestly think that adding millions of workers, without high school diplomas, much less job skills beyond manual labor, to the Social Security rolls is going to help? How about the millions of additional people on the WIC, and Section 8 rolls. How is this helping America again?

And apparently, Velociman, you are ok with this. Apparently you are going to reward politicians that reward criminals by voting for them.

EricWS,

[W]hat do we do with 25-40 million illegals that this amnesty attracts?

Easy. We enforce the border. In the next bill.

Nothing in this first bill prohibits future tightening of our border-controls.

I think it needs to be a two-step approach. We initiate normalization first, then we work on borders. If another mil or two slip in in the meantime, that's just 4-6 million future software engineers and Home Depot employees for the American economy.

Not that big a deal...

Steveaz,
And your belief that those million will produce 4-6 million, law abiding, productive children, and no criminal ones is....?

Besides, they won't have the "security" in this bill done until Dec 2008, IF the FedGov gets done on time (the odds on that?). How many years will it take for them to decide those provisions are not enough? 5? 10? More?

Once the bill passes, there will be a rush at the border leading up to Dec 2008. I doubt it will slow down after that.

I also notice that you left every other question unanswered.....

It seems no one has the final solution, and since the gas chamber idea is so old hat I am proposing a new set of hunting guidlines. I do have question if a wetback is crossing between Georgia and S. Carolina does the S. Carolina hunter need an out of state license to shoot or can we get an agreement for mutual license support? What would be the average bag limit and would it be an either sex season? Would baiting fields with chalupa's and beer be considered fair?

I never said I was okay with this. And I believe I called the politicians "criminals". My point was we can't depend on them to do the right thing. We have to enforce the borders with existing laws, and gradually winnow out the illegals by attrition.

My position was one of jaundiced pessimism, with a little irony in that we all saw it happening for decades, now we're all up in arms when it's too late.

Sorry Velociman, that I misunderstood your position.

I have not been alive for 3 decades yet, and was less than 10 when the '86 amnesty went through. So excuse me if I did not write my Congressman at the time.

I have explained, politely, to both my Congressman, and sane Senator, my concerns about this bill. I am up in arms because this is the first time that immigration has been a front burner issue since I could vote.