The US now has approximately 950 Border Patrol agents stationed on the 5,525-mile long US-Canadian border. The 1,950 mile-long US-Mexico border has 10,300 agents. In 2005 the Canadian border had approximately 1000 agents and the Mexican border 9,600. The increased number of agents and troops along the Mexican border makes a difference, but the net result is just to make people smugglers richer. As more areas of the border become well guarded, smugglers charge more to get people in via more remote areas. The greed, and often callousness, of the smugglers has helped change Mexican public opinion towards the illegal migrants. More and more Mexicans are looking at the exodus as a sign of Mexican failure. Why must Mexicans move north of the border to find economic success? Why not in Mexico?
#1
More and more Mexicans are looking at the exodus as a sign of Mexican failure. Why must Mexicans move north of the border to find economic success? Why not in Mexico?
Indeed! This is what I and others have said all along - we need to put op the fence to force Mexico to solve its political and economic problems before it becomes a Venezuela and we are forced to invade it.
#2
The pro-illegalistas are enablers of the problem. They're like the spouse unwilling to take the right action when the other spouse is hooked on destructive drugs that sap the soul of anything other than another fix [which in the case of the ruling caste of Mexico is power]. So instead of leaving or turning the abuser in, they go out and get the drugs [means to avoid reform by sending their people elsewhere] to sustain the abuser's habit.
Notice where the pro-illegalistas come from? The same cut of cloth that for decades thought the solution to welfare was more money to those who did not or would not work.
As we went to press in the U.S. last night, morning was breaking at the Musudan-ri launch facility in the remote northeast of North Korea. It's possible we'll wake up to the news that Pyongyang has tested the long-range ballistic missile that is fully fueled and which U.S. satellites have monitored for more than a month.
If so, we hope we'll also learn that the U.S. responded by testing its newly operational missile defense system and blowing the Korean provocation out of the sky. What better way to discourage would-be nuclear proliferators than to demonstrate that the U.S. is able to destroy their missiles before they hit our allies, or the U.S. homeland. Even a miss would be a useful learning experience all around. . . .
Why would North Korea prepare to test a long-range missile in plain sight of U.S. satellites and the world? There is much head-scratching over that, but it really shouldnt be a mystery. Aggressive and erratic behavior is pretty much what the North Korean economy is based on. It is what has allowed Pyongyang to extort aid from the rest of the world as a prop to its criminal regime.
The proper response is to make it clear to the North Koreans that we arent playing that game anymore. That means eschewing the Clinton approach of shoveling help to North Korea in the hope of ending the provocations. It also means using our missile-defense system against a North Korean missile launch, should it come to that.
The Taepodong-2 missile has the range to reach at least Alaska and Hawaii, and the gravity of a nuclear North Korea having this technology should go without saying. There is a wide expanse of ocean where such a test launch could fall harmlessly, but, on the other hand, the missile also could be directed toward U.S. territory. If it is (the North Koreans never issue the customary notice to airmen and sailors about the intended path of their ICBM tests), the Bush administration would be in the odd position of taking a lunatic regimes word for it that a missile headed in our direction is innocently intended.
This puts us in an intolerable position, and if the missile comes within the performance envelope of our nascent missile-defense system, we should try to shoot it down. . . .
Works for me. Weapons free, boys, fire as you bear!
Posted by: Mike ||
06/21/2006 11:41 ||
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#1
Laser it while still on the pad, no announcement that we had anything to do with it.
Since lasers only leave scorch marks, and since it would explode the fuel, (And cause Much scorching anyway) let the NORKS think it was some fault with the Missle.
Hit it in daytime when Lasers are pretty much invisible.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/21/2006 16:11 Comments ||
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#2
I like the idea Jim. But if we make the attempt and fail and then it is traced back to us that would be..............bad.
Posted by: RJB in JC MO ||
06/21/2006 22:55 Comments ||
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The important thing to keep in mind about analyses of North Korea's behavior is William Goldman's famous dictum about producing hits in Hollywood: nobody knows anything. Until paying court to Kim Jong-il in front of over 100,000 spectators (and thereby ratifying his status a world leader to any domestic doubters), no American official had ever been in the same room with the man who is publicly worshipped as a near-god by his people, at least when the authorities are watching (which is most of the time). By comparison, our inadequate intelligence on Iran, the other axis of evil nuclear wannabe, is comprehensive.
You know that matters are bizarre when the New York Times editorial board uncharacteristically endorses the foreign policy actions of the Bush administration, as it did today.
Washington, for its part, has reacted sensibly, not wasting a lot of time on diplomatic rigmarole and delivering instead a clear and direct message to North Korea not to proceed with a missile test. We hope that North Korea's next surprise is to respond equally sensibly and cancel whatever plans it has for such a self-destructive move.
Bad weather over the launch site has postponed the launch for at least a few hours or maybe days. But hoping for sensibility from Kim Jong-il's regime is a rather slender reed upon to rest any hopes for peace. It is only barely a year since the last crisis over missile testing by North Korea, and the prospect is that more will follow, regardless of the outcome of the current scheduled missile launch.
Part of the problem in getting a handle on the North Korean situation is the age-old tragedy of Korean geopolitics: its location at the juncture of major powers China, Russia, and Japan. The brutal realties of this location are what originally caused historic Korea to become the Hermit Kingdom.
Kim is regarded by some as a pawn of the Chinese. While it is true his regime is utterly dependent on China for fuel and land access to the rest of the world, the relationship is far more complex than that of a vassal. Historical antagonisms aside (and this must always be hypothetical because those antagonisms are very real), China fears two opposite outcomes in North Korea. A complete collapse there, not at all unthinkable in light of the mass starvation a few years ago, would send millions of refugees into China, and undoubtedly cause substantial disruption, and discrediting of the Beijing regime's foreign policies. But the antipodal outcome, any steps toward actual reunification with the South would confront Beijing with another potential Japan sharing a border across the narrow Yalu River.
China no doubt enjoys the discomfort of the Americans and Japanese, but only up to the point where Japan begins to rearm in earnest. Japan and The United States have already implemented unprecedented levels of integration of their military forces, and the Japanese are spending serious amounts of money on building a high tech force, light on manpower but heavy on capability.
Kim has been put on notice by Prime Minister Koizumi that "severe action" will result if the launch is carried out, and with Japan rapidly losing its nuclear allergy, China, Russia, and many other neighborhood residents worry that the only country ever to endure nuclear attacks may someday soon be able to share the experience with others.
While it is possible that Kim is jealous of the attention lavished on Iran, or perhaps hopes to extract generous offers of aid in return for appearing to back down on the missile program, domestic politics may be the deciding factor. It is always tempting to assume that brutal totalitarian dictators enjoy unquestioned and secure power simply because of their draconian actions. In truth, the more brutal the tyrant, the greater the probability that insecurity over his hold on the instruments of power is the primary motivator of the brutality.
Kim Jong-il walks a tightrope in holding onto office. He will never be the equal of his father, Kim Il-sung, in terms of domestic public regard, no matter how relentless his propaganda machine. His brutality has yielded starvation, and hunger usually makes people cranky. But reform would be seen as weakness.
A year and a half ago, portraits of the Dear Leader started disappearing, but that crises passed, with no explanation ever reaching the public. There are recurring reports from defectors of anti-government movements being active. And there are the very curious reports of a train explosion in an area where the Dear Leader's private train had passed only hours earlier. The regime subsequently claimed that the explosion was merely a planned excavation in a mountain, for a hydroelectric project.
Nobody knows anything.
Yet there are few things we do know. The skyline of the capital city, Pyongyang, whose residents are the comparatively prosperous and powerful elite of the nation, is dominated by the shell of the Ryugong Hotel, a 105 story concrete tower, one of the biggest and tallest buildings in the world, originally intended to shame the skyscrapers of the South with the glorious achievements of the workers' state. It is so badly constructed that the elevator shafts are out of plumb and could never be used; the substandard concrete is reportedly falling off in chunks, endangering those below. It is an enormous rotting hulk, never a good look for the fashionable dictatorship. And you can't miss it.
If Kim were to demolish the hotel carcass, it would be a full-fledged admission of failure, which is probably why it still stands. But to leave it on the capital's skyline, a decrepit pyramid reminiscent of a vanished formerly powerful monarch, cannot be doing much to solidify his hold on power. As with economic reform, he is stuck in a situation where time is not on his side.
There is zero chance that Condoleezza Rice will come to pay court, as Madeleine Albright did, and few chances for other reinforcement of Kim's hold on power. While small steps toward economic reform, such as tolerating local food markets, are reported here and there to have improved the lot of the people, such reforms also diminish the power of the state and empower the people. So they will not be allowed to progress very far.
A tyrant who is believed to be a fading force is one who will take extreme measures to hold onto power and keep his rivals afraid. A showy launch of a missile, demonstrating that his regime is capable of rattling the cages of the superpowers, may well be Kim's way of demonstrating to his military and to his people that he remains a dominant political force, not to be trifled with the by the Yankees, much less by domestic rivals.
Thomas Lifson is the editor and publisher of The American Thinker.
Posted by: John ||
06/21/2006 9:09 Comments ||
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#4
Looks Goa'uld.
Posted by: Phil ||
06/21/2006 9:14 Comments ||
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#5
Must be Kimmie's escape rocket.
Posted by: ed ||
06/21/2006 9:17 Comments ||
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#6
Lifson's analysis is quite intriguing - and seems very plausible across the board. Perhaps, like the hotel, Kimmie's control is shedding chunks here and there, too. Which, as the man said, makes him all the more likely to do something stupid.
BTW, the excellent pix were very revealing. I wonder how much "danger" there was in taking them... Except for the two policewomen in their very brightly colored uniforms, serving as traffic lights, the word that sums it up for me is barren.
#9
mhw, it might look like it, but no way in hell is it going to stand up for thousands of years! ;)
It reminds me of a classic Soviet joke about the best view of a certain city. The local told the tourist to go to the top of a building built in the Stalin-Wedding Cake style. The tourist asked if it was the high point of the city, and the local said, no....but at least you won't get a view of that building from there!
#2
Some years ago, I read a hilarious comedy piece which was written as an editorial some years after the Antichrist had come and gone, essentially saying that maybe he wasn't such a bad sort after all.
It had that same snivelling local newspaper sound to it, of something that had to be cranked out to make deadline, and maybe hoped to generate some hate mail.
All told, it sounded like the Antichrist had about the same morals as Bill Clinton, and the same amount of spine as John Kerry. More than anything else that he was just ineffectual and lazy as President of the World.
The Condoleezza Rice State Department is proving more adept at diplomacy than the Colin Powell State Department. Part of her success is tied to her cagey effort to move John Bolton from Washington to New York, where he serves _ minus Senate confirmation _ as the ambassador to the United Nations. Problem is, he's plowing just as wide a path of destruction through the United Nations as he plowed through overall U.S. foreign policy when he worked in Washington.
Rice deserves a fair amount of credit for the change in her department. She is close to President Bush, so she's viewed as a trustworthy insider; Powell wasn't. Rice also had the good sense to elevate Nick Burns to the top political post at State. Burns is young, smart, pragmatic, a consummate diplomat with a warm, engaging demeanor. He would make a fine secretary of state himself.
Shuffling Bolton off to the United Nations helped an awful lot too. The department no longer had to suffer his brutish, undiplomatic approach to foreign policy. Bolton does not appear to believe in traditional statesmanship; his way is to wade into an issue, mouth blazing, and demand that his views _ by extension, America's views _ prevail. Bolton single-handedly sabotaged talks with North Korea on its nuclear-weapons program. And when the British and Americans were trying to get Libya to renounce nukes, the British actually requested that Bolton be kept away from the negotiations, lest he wreck them.
But while it was good to get Bolton out of Washington, it hasn't been healthy for the United Nations. Bolton, you'll recall, once remarked that you could knock off the top 10 stories of the U.N. headquarters building and suffer no negative effect. Time and again, he has mucked up U.N. efforts to reform the organization, which badly needs it.
Bolton's latest contretemps involves Secretary-General Kofi Annan's plan for reform. Annan developed a series of quite radical proposals, aimed at eliminating useless work and assigning staff where they were most needed. Poor nations rejected key parts of Annan's plan, fearing they would dilute Third World power in the organization. So Bolton responded that if they continue to resist reform, wealthy countries (which pay for a huge percentage of the budget) should stop paying for the United Nations.
Ultimatums usually don't work, and that is particularly true at U.N. headquarters, where consensus is the traditional path to action. The result of Bolton's ploy has been paralytic crisis. Poor nations have their backs up, and Bolton won't budge. Yet the deadline for agreeing on reforms looms at the end of June. Everyone is worried that U.S. and Japanese financial support will be cut off, leaving U.N. agencies unable to function.
An essential part of Rice's job at State is containing the damage that Bolton can cause anywhere he applies his boorish bluster. The best thing would be to sack Bolton and let him slink off to a think tank. At the least, he needs to be put on a short leash and forced to wear a muzzle.
Rice should arrange a fitting for those devices early this morning, even as she withdraws the threat to withhold U.S. funding and upbraids opponents of reform.
#2
The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune is a communist rag. I consider this Editorial an endorsement of Bolton methods. He should wear this as a badge of honor.
#3
Call me crazy, but if they got rid of even half of the corruption that goes on there, they should have enough money to do their "important work" just fine.
#4
Bolton single-handedly sabotaged talks with North Korea on its nuclear-weapons program.
Really? I blame Mad Halfbright and that dim witted, cowardly Jimmy Carter for that long before Bolton showed up.
Time and again, he has mucked up U.N. efforts to reform the organization
That one leaves me speechless though, so I've concluded that this editorial sucks and the author is an effete UN loving windbag tranzi.
#5
The department no longer had to suffer his brutish, undiplomatic but highly effective approach to foreign policy. Thank goodness, Bolton does not appear to believe in traditional statesmanship; his way is to wade into an issue, mouth blazing, and demand that his views _ by extension, America's views _ prevail.
#14
Took the words right out of my keyboard there, GORT.
Posted by: Mike ||
06/21/2006 11:39 Comments ||
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I have always considered the m0onb@+ reaction of the left a good measure on how good a person is doing their job. For instance:
They revile Karl Rove He has won two Presidential elections (very poor)
They hate Condi Rice Gosh how can a Black female with a doctorate be a successful Secretary of State (just horrible)
They despise Arnold Single handedly (we have a Democrat controlled legislator) turned projected years of deficit into HUGE revenues and saved the economy of California (Nazi)
Bolton should have been confirmed by the Senate last year but we have sheep for leaders. Given his great success at the un I am surprised he hasnt been attacked more.
Amid evidence indicating that the Stalinist North Korean regime may have completed the fueling of its most advanced long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) whose range could place our West Coast in jeopardy, the Pentagon recently activated its new ground-based interceptor-missile defense system. Bill Gertz, national-security and intelligence correspondent for The Washington Times, reported yesterday that the Pentagon switched the U.S. anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense system from test to operational mode.
The current ABM system features 11 long-range, ground-based interceptor missiles. Nine are based at Fort Greely in Alaska and two are deployed at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Each of the interceptors can launch an exoatmospheric kill vehicle capable of intercepting a warhead traveling more than 15,000 mph in the midcourse phase of an ICBM's trajectory.
Lasting about 20 minutes, the midcourse phase of an ICBM follows the three-to-five -minute boost phase, which is the ideal time to destroy any ballistic missile -- i.e., before the missile warhead can achieve the velocity necessary to reach its target. Unfortunately, the United States currently has no capability of destroying an ICBM in its boost phase, in part because the eight-year Clinton administration had so little interest pursuing missile defense. In fact, presidential funding requests for missile defense steadily declined from an average of $5.3 billion (fiscal years 1992 and 1993) to $2.6 billion in 1998, when the Rumsfeld commission alerted the nation to the ballistic-missile threat posed by North Korea and other rogue states. Indeed, North Korea launched an earlier version of the Taepodong missile, which flew over Japan, the month after the Rumsfeld commission issued its report.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/21/2006 01:23 ||
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"If and when the world observes in action the strategic U.S. advances in missile defense, the United States should have a much stronger case to make to European, Mideastern and Asian nations to support U.S. diplomatic initiatives against rogue and other hostile states."
Unfortunately the opposite is likely to be true. Once we have a demonstrated capability for defense the dhimmis will assume it is ok for others to have missiles and nukes since we can protect them all.
Posted by: DanNY ||
06/21/2006 9:10 Comments ||
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The West's conflict with Islamic terrorism is more than a "clash of civilizations." It is, at root, a clash between two world views and two moral models, a clash much wider and more important than any political conflict.
I was reminded of this by a brilliant observation in a recent column by Charles Krauthammer--an observation far more significant than Krauthammer himself seems prepared to recognize. Writing about the way in which Palestinians have consistently rejected every opportunity for statehood, peace, and prosperity, instead choosing constant warfare and destruction, he concludes: "This embrace of victimhood, of martyrdom, of blood and suffering, is the Palestinian disease."
What Krauthammer doesn't realize is that this worship of suffering is the world's disease, a very old affliction that has evaded our cultural immune system by disguising itself as a morality. That morality is accepted as uncontroversial in today's world, and you hear it, and probably nod in agreement, whenever someone tells you that self-sacrifice is the essence of moral virtue.
But isn't self-sacrifice--or, as Krauthammer puts it, "victimhood, martyrdom, blood and suffering"--the essence of the horrific plight the Palestinians have chosen for themselves? And shouldn't this make us question, at its very roots, the morality of self-sacrifice?
The Palestinians show us a society based on sacrifice in its purest, most fanatical form. It is a society built around a single moral model: the suicide bomber, who is lionized on billboards, on television, in popular songs. And this is not just the propaganda of the corrupt Palestinian rulers. One of the delegates elected to the Palestinian parliament in the populist upsurge for Hamas was Umm Nidal, the "mother of martyrs," who has sent three of her sons to kill themselves in terrorist attacks on Israel, proclaiming that their "sacrifice...makes me happy."
For the great mass of Palestinians this worship of sacrifice is sincere. By rejecting every chance at peace and coexistence with Israel--breaking every truce and turning down every peace offer--they have lost everything and gained nothing. Taking the suicide bomber as their moral model, the Palestinians seek to emulate his fate: in their lust to destroy Israel, they are willing to accept the utter destruction and collapse of their own society.
Look to the other side of the security barrier and you see a very different society. While the Palestinians raise their children on visions of blood and murder, the Israelis are largely preoccupied by the business of producing, creating, making a living. Consider, for example, the vast Gaza greenhouses handed over from the departing Israelis to the Palestinians. In the hands of the society that "made the desert bloom," these greenhouses produced millions of dollars worth of produce. Under Palestinian control, they were looted and their products have literally been left to rot. As with the Cold War examples of East and West Berlin, Gaza and Israel offer side-by-side laboratories for opposing moralities.
The contrast to America--a nation founded on the right to "the pursuit of happiness"--is even more vivid. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1832, he reported that the moral doctrine of "self-interest properly understood"--not hedonism, but a version of rational, benevolent self-interest--was "universally accepted": "You hear it as much from the poor as from the rich."
The distinctive model for American culture is not the suicide bomber but the "self-made man": the entrepreneur who achieves prosperity by hard work and ingenuity. Implicitly, we recognize that the proper business of life is not sacrifice but achievement. This is the actual code by which most Americans live.
The tragedy is that we don't recognize it.
We are still too morally intimidated by unquestioned traditions, or by the confused invocation of the "sacrifice" of our courageous soldiers--which fails to recognize that it is an act of the most profound self-interest to resist the rule of tyranny and terror. And so we pay lip service to the nobility of sacrifice.
This lip service undercuts our certainty and moral clarity, not only in dealing with terrorism, but also at home. British columnist Janet Daley, for example, worries that the right hasn't come up with a "morally attractive case for capitalism" despite the fact that "it is free markets that have delivered mass prosperity and personal self-fulfillment on a scale unprecedented in human history." But is this really such a mystery, when everyone denounces "selfishness," so that personal prosperity and "self-fulfillment" are viewed as morally unimportant at best and morally suspect at worst?
Only one prominent intellectual in the last century--Ayn Rand, the great intellectual defender of individualism--has been brave enough to name the moral lesson. Rejecting the morality of sacrifice, she declared that "The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live," while in her classic novel The Fountainhead, her hero laments that "The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing." Ayn Rand remains a controversial figure, scoffed at by both left and right. But this phrase, "perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing"--could there be a better description of the Palestinians' suicide bomb society?
Look at the horrific plight the Palestinians have chosen, and you can observe the real meaning of a culture of self-sacrifice. Look at America, by comparison, and you can see the life-affirming benevolence of a culture of rational self-interest.
The evidence is out there, and its moral lessons are clear--if only we are brave enough to learn from them.
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com.
#1
"...this phrase, "perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing"--could there be a better description of the Palestinians' suicide bomb society?"
Exactly.
I have found so much value in re-reading Ayn Rand's books (especially Atlas Shrugged, but also The Fountainhead). Years after she wrote the books, her words ring even truer today. She provides a perfect snapshot of the ideals in conflict in the 21st century's WoT: the quest for meaningful death vs. the quest for meaningful life.
#2
Rand scares the shit out of the intellectuals who've stuffed themselves full of silly nihilistic gibberish for regurgitation on cue in hopes of making someone's Idiot A-list or getting laid.
She is the anti-nihilist.
I always rather liked this one:
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -Atlas Shrugged
#3
Substitute "altruism" for "self-sacrifice" and the article is largely a Rand screed. Our world continues to be poisoned by the, largely, religious imperative that anything we do for ourselves is evil, whereas, anything we do for others is good.
Just as one is supposed to go through personality (read, "ego") death and be "reborn again", so it is that much of modern society still views ego as anathema to morality. That this is so much steaming horsesh!t manages to escape most of today's world.
The glorification of ego in no way condones sudden rampaging of the id. The upholding of ego in no way releases us from those responsibilities of the social contract. Yet, much of society would have you believe that this is true.
Much of this can be traced to the alienation of man from actual work output. No longer do we carry home the meat we have caught or food we have gathered. No longer do we bring home a share of that day's shearing or weaving. Instead, are involved in jobs that typically require a minuscule portion of our actual creative ability.
In a world that less and less often demands personal innovation, such productive throwbacks as the tenant farmer and other self-sufficient individuals are no longer held forth as worthy examples of human ability. In the obscene pursuit of unearned wealth and unmerited fame (Madonna? Regis Philbin, anyone?), actual creativity and individual excellence have been thrust into the backseat, and we all know what happens there.
In a world where one need merely touch a dial or button to hear music, in a world where one click of the remote brings you well-produced video renditions of classic literary works, people no longer have the least notion of what actual creativity involves.
Ergo, the ego, the prime mover of innovation and creativity is now held suspect and those who exhibit these tendencies are regarded as anachronistic or anti-social because they choose to pursue activities and goals not-so-easily attained as watching a soap opera/football game or swilling beer at the corner bar.
Ego is being crucified on the cross of lowest common denominator culture. Just as (The Fountainhead's) Howard Roarke is hounded for his unalloyed vision of modern architecture, just as (Atlas Shrugged's) John Galt is tortured for his unwavering allegience to the individual, so now does society regard askance those who do not kowtow to the mammon and moloch of popular culture.
In a world that increasingly demands unquestioning faith (e.g., Islam and fundamentalism in general), individuality is regarded as a virulent threat. In a political environment that every day becomes less bi-partisan and more financially unipolar (incumbents of both parties and their obsession with re-election), free thought is seen as heresey.
Welcome to the world of conformance. Welcome to homogeneity. Welcome to hell.
Originally printed in The Economist and re-printed at the Hispanic-American Center for Economic Research. Read the article; this is why we have little to fear from immigration from the south.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/21/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I won't open a comment war.
Suffice it to say North Carolina is not California. Or Arizona.
#2
Meat, Mexicans and Social Mobility. That would make an excellent suggestion for the Episcopal Church's alternative description of the Trinity, no?
Posted by: Tibor ||
06/21/2006 2:41 Comments ||
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#3
No Threat! I have heard Mex-Ams (or whatever) openly speak about uniting California and Arizona with Mexico, when they have the numbers. People should do the math, before they make snap judgments.
Does it ever occur to the Greater Aztlan crowd that the reason Cali and Arizona are attractive is because they are *not* Mexico? After you expand the economic dumpster that is our neighbor to the south, where will you go next?
#7
Steve,
It is very obvous to the Mexicans who actually come here that living here is much better than in Mexico.
The desire for the "reconquista" is from the Mexican elites (in Mexico) and the Chicano equivelent of "Trustafarians".
When the Mexican consulate in Seattle tried a voter registration drive for the last Mexican elections, only 1/1000th of the people eligible registered.
The "reconquista" is as real as "Fitzmas" in DC.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
06/21/2006 12:37 Comments ||
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#8
The discussion is not about the worth of hard working immigrants. I so tire of this red herring. The topic is ILLEGAL immigration. Sure, many go on to live the American dream. Good on them, we all wish them well and welcome them. The real issue is that business benefit from cheap labor and we taxpayers pay the bill for the services for it. They sell it to us that we are saving so much money on lettuce and lawn care. BS.
It's an immoral shadow class. Make them legal -make a legal immigration system that works. Is it really too much to ask for? They say American citizens won't do these jobs for the wages paid. Who will do it when we make them all legal? Riddle me that, Batman!
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Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
