While all the world is waiting for a typically corrupt latino culture, and the government that a typically corrupt latino culture richly deserves, and almost always gets, the time has come for the USA to shut tight its border with the nearest country operated under aegis of such a culture, and begin expelling non-Americans who illegally crossed our borders to work in this country, which is also illegal.
In absence of the above, I'm really not interested in hearing about social problems of Mexicans. I just want tham stopped if they cross the US border illegally. I want those who employ them jailed. I want their illegal indentured servants rounded up and sent back to Mexico, where they can get in line for a US visa to come to this country. Just like any other foreigner.
In the meantime, regardless of any other consideration, I want the guarding of the US border with Mexico to be treated as the main responsibility of the armed forces of the United States. Not just federalized National Guard troops. And I want federal funding of any kind absolutely suspended for any state or local government that defies the United States Code and aids or abets the immigration laws of the United States. In addition to that, I want their tax exempt status terminated for any church or other religious organization that harbors or otherwise assists illegal aliens to continue breaking the laws of this country. Beyond that, I want the public business and educational systems of this country to be conducted strictly in the English language.
All that I have described above -- and probably a hell of a lot more -- is exactly the way the Mexicans operate their own country, and I see no reason we should not compel them to accept the consequeces both of reciprocity and failure of the mass of them to rise up and reform their own thoroughly rotten culture and thoroughly rotten government.
Nor will I ever again vote for any politician who waffles on these fully related issues. The time is long overdue for Americans to start playing serious hardball. That exactly describes the politics I shall espounse in order to get this particular job done.
I agree with Arnold above.
We cannot change Mexico from the North except by stopping the Mexican elites use of the border as a "safety valve". People need to sit in Mexico and agitate for change there. They won't do that as long as they can flee Mexico.
Arnold and Scott are right. The only cure for Mexico's ills is to force her leaders to deal with them. As long as we allow Mexicans to migrate northward with relative ease and do nothing to secure our borders or enforce our own immigration laws, we are complicit in Mexico's failures.
The best thing we could do for the Mexican people is seal off the souther border with a wall and start vigorously enforcing our immigration laws, and than means deporting illegals when we catch them - no more of this "catch and release" crap. That would force the Mexican government to deal with the legacy of a centuries worth of corruption, mismanagement, and cronyism.
Not only should we secure the border, but we should enforce the laws against hiring illegals. If no one will hire an illegal, there will be no incentive to come into the US.
Presumably if you shut off remitances one way or another, Fox would be gaining less benefit from sending slave labor to America in order to give Fox more tax revenue.
Was the government prior to Vincente Fox really a socialist one? On paper perhaps, but in truth the only form of government Mexico has known for three hundred years has been kleptocracy.
Look, Mexico's history is repleat with populist revolutions and movements that have promissed land reform, economic reform, jobs, and fair treatment for the people and they've all ended up failing the people of Mexico and falling back into the culture of cronysism, corruption, and calamity that has ruled Mexico since the Spanish.
The best thing we can do for Mexico is to stop letting the Mexican government use the U.S. as a dumping ground for their surplus population. I'm not anti-immigrant, hell, I'm not even anti-illegal immigrant - who can blame them for wanting to come to the one country on earth that actually gives them a chance to make a life for themselves and do something for their families back home? But we aren't the dumping ground for the worlds problems, and Mexico won't get better unless we force it to. Build a wall. Send the illegals home. Force change.
I have a strong dislike (and that's putting it mildly) for the opinions put forth by Messrs. Harris, Kirwin, and Modean in this thread. I think that's an atrocious attitude, stating that we should force and condemn people to live in a poor, unfree country because they, of no choice of their own, were born there, while you, of no choice of your own, were born here with freedoms and opportunities.
It's all well and good to say 'they should reform their government', but how are they to do that with bare subsistence, cronyism, and shantytowns? And it would seem to me that any kind of 'revolution' born out of poverty like that would be the one we don't want to see.
I agree Mexico needs to be a good place to live, but the way to do that isn't to say 'Do as we say, but don't come here and actually find out how we do it. You stay in your little craphole.'
Fie on your protectionism and militarizing and limitations.
Not only should we secure the border, but we should enforce the laws against hiring illegals. If no one will hire an illegal, there will be no incentive to come into the US.
While I agree whole heartedly with those that want to seal the border (especially for national security), enforcing the laws against hiring illegal immigrants will is just as important and probably much more effective.
The job market for them would dry up almost entirely if a few employers pay tens of thousands per incident and do the perp walk in orange fatigues. Having no jobs available, the illegals will just take the lesser of the two bad choices and just go home on their own.
I also agree with Arnold except on the "corrupt latino culture." Mexico is ruled by less than 10 percent of the country that is "white" (Spanish, or Castilian) Caucasian not latino. Fox btw is the son of a wealthy Irishman.
It is this small group that rules the rest of the country. The rest consisting of 60 percent "mestizos" (mixed Indio-Caucasian) and 30 percent indigenous groups (Mexican Indians).
Dan,
Immigration in general does not bother me and I don't believe it is a problem for Messrs. Kirwin, harris and Modean. What bothers me is that for some reason, the US Government has created a rather "privileged" class of immigrants from the Country of Mexico. According to the Senate bill these immigrants will be given tuition breaks at our Universities. They will not have to pay out-of-state tuition fees. The Senate struck down a provision that prohibited known criminals from obtaining amnesty - this from an administration that prides itself on homeland security. Unskilled workers are favored over skilled workers. Sounds like a potential economic burden to me. All in all, I believe the President and Senate has thumbed their noses at many of the questions many Americans have had about the President's immigration policy. Why the President is so particularly concerned about immigrants from Mexico is beyond me. I don't know what understanding he and Fox have behind the scene - and I am not a conspiracy freak either. Yeah, it's tough to deport all these illegals. Yeah, it's tough to come down on employers who hire illegals. But , interestingly, it's NOT tough to muster the bureaucracy to process these people for amnesty/guest worker/citizenship or whatever. Go figure.
Dan the Highway Guy, sorry but the color of the sky in my world is blue - not rosy pink like it is in yours. I'm not a protectionist, and the comment on militarizing is just crap. I'm also not anti-immigrant, and I wasn't born here because it was "luck". I was born here because my parents immigrated here legally. My father's family immigrated here from Germany in the 1840's, my mother's family came fleeing the conflict of WWI. Both settled here legally, learned the language, settled down, raised families. Some of the illegal immigrants want to do the same thing, and I'd love to have a real guest worker program that would help them out. But you're kidding yourself if you think the all of the Mexican illegals who come up here want to go that route.
There's a significant portion of the illegals, I heard someone on MSNBC the other day say upwards of 40%, who come here strictly to earn cash to send home and support their families. They learn little or no English, they never attempt to assimilate, when they are injured they get treated on OUR dime, if they need assistance WE pay. We're the de facto social services provider for about 10% of the Mexican people already, yet we get no taxes benefits from them.
You say, "...how are they to do that (reform their government) with bare subsistence, cronyism, and shantytowns?" That's easy. When the ruling families see that they can no longer dump their surplus population on us to support they'll have to start reforming or they'll get exactly the revolution they don't want, otherwise the people SHOULD rise up. You say that's exactly the kind of revolution we don't want to see down there, really? At this point anything would be preferable to the kleptocracy that is Mexico's government. Maybe a whiff of cordite is just what the doctor ordered.
Mariner, I sure as hell would not want to live in a time and place in which I had to take a public opinion poll before speaking my mind about what I am certain is right.
I don't know how many people agree or disagree with me. But whatever happens, I've got both my woman and my integrity to keep me warm at night, and I've kept company with both for a long time. And all told, that's something to feel good about.
Dave, you are correct. Immigration is not what I'm complaining about, and I don't think the others are complaining about it either. But I just will not stand still for this country turning a blind eye toward an open invasion of our southern border. And I don't want any new American citizens created from a fait accompli of gross illegality. That would cheapen the honestly derived citizenship of millions of other people, including many mexican Americans.
And my feeling about the businessmen who capitalize on the misery of those folks in order to use them as cheap labor and even indentured servants, is pretty much the same as most people had against the slave owners and slave breeders on those plantations in the years leading up to the american civil war. We don't hang anybody from a hemp rope in this country anymore. But I sure as hell would like to see these bastards imprisoned.
Personally, I find little intellectual or emotional satsifaction with either the current state of affairs or the popularly proposed solutions. The most free country in the world building walls on its borders is symbolically and logistically difficult and a path to citizenship is contradictory to our history of adherence to the rule of law.
If we are going to attempt to help clean up Mexico (and it could clearly benefit from this) I would defintely be open to hearing more arguments that advance that agenda within the current debate.
There is an attitude that is not spoken about and it is the Mexicans that come here and still claim they are Mexicans and hold that to the end so to speak.
Of the Mexicans I know that truly love this country they call themselves Americans. Now, I know some people are not comfortable with the Minutemen and that is your choice. I feel these Minutemen are outstanding U.S, citizens that want the illegals crossing and coming through by breaking the law to get here are just plain wrong. If you look into the founder of the Minutemen you will find an outstanding American that is trying to protect his land, you will find an 80 year old woman that has been frightened by these people coming onto her land and instead of waiting for help she heard about these Minutemen and that little lady goes out there with her friends and as they do, she makes a call to the Border Patrol to tell them where these law breakers are.
I want to share with you another story of a Mexican woman that came here legally and so did her husband and through the years she learned about this country and she learned how hard we fought to have the freedoms we have. On the other hand her husband was one I mentioned above that Mexico is where his alligence is and he is a proud Mexican living here and sending money to Mexico. After years of this her marriage ended and as she told her story of how much she loved the United States and how she taught her children to love it she could no longer see the southern border being such a hostile enviorment and the attitudes of her own heritage take advantage of our country and it's goodness. She is divorced now and she is helping the minutemen. She carries no gun, she carries the United States flag.
There are many people in other lands that have been on waiting lists for two, three and four years and they await the chance to someday be a part of this country and assimilate into it and have learned English and have college degrees and want to be doctors and nurses here and bring their hard earned degrees to help our failing system due to the burdens the illegals have put on our medical communities.
My ancestors came here for a better life and they did it the right way...honestly and took their vaccines as to not promote disease. We have a school here that has sick children with TB. That is what happens when we allow this kind of lawlessness and that TB will once again spread across this country.
Arnold, sincerely...Her is Looking at You Kid! You've got it spot on and it bothers me not when someone takes issue with you on this because I know, I know you are right. I grew up in El Paso and am now in San Antonio and I see some very disturbing things. I can tell anybody that a true Mexican that loves this country, those I grew up with and my parents too, love those good Mexicans. I applaud those that call themselves Americans now that they are and they teach their children to appreciate this country.
My dear friends have come home from traveling the world in our United States Embassey and they are mexicans. Two of their sons followed their father who was recently the head man in Immigration there in Houston. Two of his Sons are serving this country in our government. One is a specialized BORTAC...an elite group of men that started in the Border patrol as their father did. BORTAC is like a Navy Seal and he is sent aroud the country. Their other son has too become an ICE agent and went to Iraq to help train the police there. His Humvee was hit and two of his men, his band of brothers were charred and his life was spared.
This family knows that this country is the finest as they lived in embassies across the world and look at the outstanding Sons they have, they are all Americans first and formost. This is what I want. These are the mexicans that honor our Flag, honor everything we stand for.
You just keep soeaking up Arnold, I am right here Kid, Looking at You!
Quick note on the alleged "socialist" flavor of various Mexican administrations.
Who here noticed the bit in Annie's column where she points out that forty families own 60% of Mexico?
I move that this is, in no way, a socialist government, nor has it ever been so.
Also I can't resist snarking on Sandi: could you possibly cite a non-corrupt latino government in Central/South America? Heh.
As for the fastidious few who shrink in horror from the barbarian horde of "Messrs. Harris, Kirwin, and Modean" (Harris, Kirwin, & Modean. Purveyors of the Finest anti-immigrant utensils known to Western civilization, including [but not limited to] Messrs. Colt, Browning, Smith & Wesson, and Webley), I would suggest the following directive:
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
In absence of the above, I'm really not interested in hearing about social problems of Mexicans. I just want tham stopped if they cross the US border illegally. I want those who employ them jailed. I want their illegal indentured servants rounded up and sent back to Mexico, where they can get in line for a US visa to come to this country. Just like any other foreigner.
In the meantime, regardless of any other consideration, I want the guarding of the US border with Mexico to be treated as the main responsibility of the armed forces of the United States. Not just federalized National Guard troops. And I want federal funding of any kind absolutely suspended for any state or local government that defies the United States Code and aids or abets the immigration laws of the United States. In addition to that, I want their tax exempt status terminated for any church or other religious organization that harbors or otherwise assists illegal aliens to continue breaking the laws of this country. Beyond that, I want the public business and educational systems of this country to be conducted strictly in the English language.
All that I have described above -- and probably a hell of a lot more -- is exactly the way the Mexicans operate their own country, and I see no reason we should not compel them to accept the consequeces both of reciprocity and failure of the mass of them to rise up and reform their own thoroughly rotten culture and thoroughly rotten government.
Nor will I ever again vote for any politician who waffles on these fully related issues. The time is long overdue for Americans to start playing serious hardball. That exactly describes the politics I shall espounse in order to get this particular job done.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
We cannot change Mexico from the North except by stopping the Mexican elites use of the border as a "safety valve". People need to sit in Mexico and agitate for change there. They won't do that as long as they can flee Mexico.
The best thing we could do for the Mexican people is seal off the souther border with a wall and start vigorously enforcing our immigration laws, and than means deporting illegals when we catch them - no more of this "catch and release" crap. That would force the Mexican government to deal with the legacy of a centuries worth of corruption, mismanagement, and cronyism.
Look, Mexico's history is repleat with populist revolutions and movements that have promissed land reform, economic reform, jobs, and fair treatment for the people and they've all ended up failing the people of Mexico and falling back into the culture of cronysism, corruption, and calamity that has ruled Mexico since the Spanish.
The best thing we can do for Mexico is to stop letting the Mexican government use the U.S. as a dumping ground for their surplus population. I'm not anti-immigrant, hell, I'm not even anti-illegal immigrant - who can blame them for wanting to come to the one country on earth that actually gives them a chance to make a life for themselves and do something for their families back home? But we aren't the dumping ground for the worlds problems, and Mexico won't get better unless we force it to. Build a wall. Send the illegals home. Force change.
It's all well and good to say 'they should reform their government', but how are they to do that with bare subsistence, cronyism, and shantytowns? And it would seem to me that any kind of 'revolution' born out of poverty like that would be the one we don't want to see.
I agree Mexico needs to be a good place to live, but the way to do that isn't to say 'Do as we say, but don't come here and actually find out how we do it. You stay in your little craphole.'
Fie on your protectionism and militarizing and limitations.
If someone else is responsible, who gets to decide who that someone else is? And by what mechanism may they enforce it?
The job market for them would dry up almost entirely if a few employers pay tens of thousands per incident and do the perp walk in orange fatigues. Having no jobs available, the illegals will just take the lesser of the two bad choices and just go home on their own.
I also agree with Arnold except on the "corrupt latino culture." Mexico is ruled by less than 10 percent of the country that is "white" (Spanish, or Castilian) Caucasian not latino. Fox btw is the son of a wealthy Irishman.
It is this small group that rules the rest of the country. The rest consisting of 60 percent "mestizos" (mixed Indio-Caucasian) and 30 percent indigenous groups (Mexican Indians).
Aren't all socialist/communist states by their nature kleptocracies?
Immigration in general does not bother me and I don't believe it is a problem for Messrs. Kirwin, harris and Modean. What bothers me is that for some reason, the US Government has created a rather "privileged" class of immigrants from the Country of Mexico. According to the Senate bill these immigrants will be given tuition breaks at our Universities. They will not have to pay out-of-state tuition fees. The Senate struck down a provision that prohibited known criminals from obtaining amnesty - this from an administration that prides itself on homeland security. Unskilled workers are favored over skilled workers. Sounds like a potential economic burden to me. All in all, I believe the President and Senate has thumbed their noses at many of the questions many Americans have had about the President's immigration policy. Why the President is so particularly concerned about immigrants from Mexico is beyond me. I don't know what understanding he and Fox have behind the scene - and I am not a conspiracy freak either. Yeah, it's tough to deport all these illegals. Yeah, it's tough to come down on employers who hire illegals. But , interestingly, it's NOT tough to muster the bureaucracy to process these people for amnesty/guest worker/citizenship or whatever. Go figure.
There's a significant portion of the illegals, I heard someone on MSNBC the other day say upwards of 40%, who come here strictly to earn cash to send home and support their families. They learn little or no English, they never attempt to assimilate, when they are injured they get treated on OUR dime, if they need assistance WE pay. We're the de facto social services provider for about 10% of the Mexican people already, yet we get no taxes benefits from them.
You say, "...how are they to do that (reform their government) with bare subsistence, cronyism, and shantytowns?" That's easy. When the ruling families see that they can no longer dump their surplus population on us to support they'll have to start reforming or they'll get exactly the revolution they don't want, otherwise the people SHOULD rise up. You say that's exactly the kind of revolution we don't want to see down there, really? At this point anything would be preferable to the kleptocracy that is Mexico's government. Maybe a whiff of cordite is just what the doctor ordered.
"Yeah, Arnold!"
I don't know how many people agree or disagree with me. But whatever happens, I've got both my woman and my integrity to keep me warm at night, and I've kept company with both for a long time. And all told, that's something to feel good about.
Dave, you are correct. Immigration is not what I'm complaining about, and I don't think the others are complaining about it either. But I just will not stand still for this country turning a blind eye toward an open invasion of our southern border. And I don't want any new American citizens created from a fait accompli of gross illegality. That would cheapen the honestly derived citizenship of millions of other people, including many mexican Americans.
And my feeling about the businessmen who capitalize on the misery of those folks in order to use them as cheap labor and even indentured servants, is pretty much the same as most people had against the slave owners and slave breeders on those plantations in the years leading up to the american civil war. We don't hang anybody from a hemp rope in this country anymore. But I sure as hell would like to see these bastards imprisoned.
Mary Janelle, here's looking at you, kid.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
If we are going to attempt to help clean up Mexico (and it could clearly benefit from this) I would defintely be open to hearing more arguments that advance that agenda within the current debate.
Of the Mexicans I know that truly love this country they call themselves Americans. Now, I know some people are not comfortable with the Minutemen and that is your choice. I feel these Minutemen are outstanding U.S, citizens that want the illegals crossing and coming through by breaking the law to get here are just plain wrong. If you look into the founder of the Minutemen you will find an outstanding American that is trying to protect his land, you will find an 80 year old woman that has been frightened by these people coming onto her land and instead of waiting for help she heard about these Minutemen and that little lady goes out there with her friends and as they do, she makes a call to the Border Patrol to tell them where these law breakers are.
I want to share with you another story of a Mexican woman that came here legally and so did her husband and through the years she learned about this country and she learned how hard we fought to have the freedoms we have. On the other hand her husband was one I mentioned above that Mexico is where his alligence is and he is a proud Mexican living here and sending money to Mexico. After years of this her marriage ended and as she told her story of how much she loved the United States and how she taught her children to love it she could no longer see the southern border being such a hostile enviorment and the attitudes of her own heritage take advantage of our country and it's goodness. She is divorced now and she is helping the minutemen. She carries no gun, she carries the United States flag.
There are many people in other lands that have been on waiting lists for two, three and four years and they await the chance to someday be a part of this country and assimilate into it and have learned English and have college degrees and want to be doctors and nurses here and bring their hard earned degrees to help our failing system due to the burdens the illegals have put on our medical communities.
My ancestors came here for a better life and they did it the right way...honestly and took their vaccines as to not promote disease. We have a school here that has sick children with TB. That is what happens when we allow this kind of lawlessness and that TB will once again spread across this country.
Arnold, sincerely...Her is Looking at You Kid! You've got it spot on and it bothers me not when someone takes issue with you on this because I know, I know you are right. I grew up in El Paso and am now in San Antonio and I see some very disturbing things. I can tell anybody that a true Mexican that loves this country, those I grew up with and my parents too, love those good Mexicans. I applaud those that call themselves Americans now that they are and they teach their children to appreciate this country.
My dear friends have come home from traveling the world in our United States Embassey and they are mexicans. Two of their sons followed their father who was recently the head man in Immigration there in Houston. Two of his Sons are serving this country in our government. One is a specialized BORTAC...an elite group of men that started in the Border patrol as their father did. BORTAC is like a Navy Seal and he is sent aroud the country. Their other son has too become an ICE agent and went to Iraq to help train the police there. His Humvee was hit and two of his men, his band of brothers were charred and his life was spared.
This family knows that this country is the finest as they lived in embassies across the world and look at the outstanding Sons they have, they are all Americans first and formost. This is what I want. These are the mexicans that honor our Flag, honor everything we stand for.
You just keep soeaking up Arnold, I am right here Kid, Looking at You!
Who here noticed the bit in Annie's column where she points out that forty families own 60% of Mexico?
I move that this is, in no way, a socialist government, nor has it ever been so.
Also I can't resist snarking on Sandi: could you possibly cite a non-corrupt latino government in Central/South America? Heh.
As for the fastidious few who shrink in horror from the barbarian horde of "Messrs. Harris, Kirwin, and Modean" (Harris, Kirwin, & Modean. Purveyors of the Finest anti-immigrant utensils known to Western civilization, including [but not limited to] Messrs. Colt, Browning, Smith & Wesson, and Webley), I would suggest the following directive: If you aren't part of the solution, you're part of the problem.