More border thoughts

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

thats a tiny fraction of the drug cases and its by no means limited to drug laws. i'm much more scared of an irs case than a dope case. never lost anything myself except a car but do know folks that have lost cars homes and a couple business's. all of those were drug cases in one case it was 5 years after he left the business

[sanglant]

and apply it, at the same rate to companies hiring illegals. would it be insignificant?

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i think it would pucker em good  but the big companies will lobby and the pols will sell out.  pass a law that sounds good but has enough loopholes to keep those contributions coming in

[longeyes]

Are the companies most affected only in limited sectors, however?  Construction, agri, hotels?  The biggest sector is government itself--all levels--social welfare and education.

[dm1333]

I said:

my grandparents refused to speak any other language than English.

 
and got this reply:

That's a little on the silly side. Speaking a second language is in no way incompatible with being an American. My kids switch from Russian to English depending on the company with no problem and have been doing it since they learned to talk.

It might seem silly to you, I don't really care.  My grandfather survived that period from 1914 to 1919 and the death of his first wife.  Whatever decision he made about speaking or not speaking Russian was his decision alone.  Having heard stories about what his life was like, especially after the Revolution, I can understand why he thought the way he did.

[longeyes]

On the matter of "strongarming" illegals already here:

Let's save time and cut to the chase.  To me it looks like this: this problem will end with either coercing illegals to leave or coercing the American people to "embrace" them.  Which option do you prefer?  Even if we could penalize employers, cut off benefits, and get a new judicial ruling on "anchor babies," I don't see most illegals leaving.  They have learned how to use the law to entangle us, they have learned from liberals how to play the victim card both domestically and internationally.  There are no easy or nice options left.  Choose which group you want to antagonize.

[grampster]

The reason we can't seem to solve the question of illegal immigration is that the conversation, like this thread, disolves into minutae arguing about questions that will eventually have to be answered.  But at the moment we need, as a nation, that means our elected critters, have to come together and formulate a plan to secure the border and ports that is actually reasonable and will work and then go do it.  The rest of the story comes later. 

Talking about immigration is like talking about drilling for oil and gas;  the minute we start getting serious about it, someone starts pointing out ancilliary crap and the conversation bogs down.  Example: (whiny voice)  If we drill for oil and gas over there (name your spot where there is oil and gas but it is prohibited) it will take 6-8-10 years before the wells are producing.  Well, gee whiz Molly, it's been nearly 30 years since the first politician whined about it being 6 years to get oil.  That's when Carter created the Dept of Energy that has thousands of employees and costs billions of dollars a year to do what?  Reduce our reliance on imports. 

My overall point here, fellow campers, is that government proves on a daily basis how inefectual it is on nearly every thing it does.  Yet half the people that vote continue to believe that in America, post modern liberalism, with its faith in, well, nothing but whatever the narative of the day is, that there is no objective truth. That is why those in power refuse to confront major issues and solve them.  That is why we need to defend the Constitution for what it is; and that is not that it is a living document.
The federal government will never solve any ouf our problems that are reality based until we begin to demand that they do.  Maybe that time is coming.  We'll see.

[longeyes]

The problem, as I see it, is not that the government is ineffectual but that it is lawless.  They make the laws they want and enforce or do not enforce at their will.  Many of the most important decisions in this nation are made behind closed doors, by unknown people who were never elected.  I'll give you a small example, the 80,000 Somali immigrants that "someone" thought needed to brought to this nation regardless of whether they would ever assimilate and whether the communities they were sent to wanted them and regardless of the cost, on all levels, to that community.  I'll tell you what I think; I think one or two people are behind this policy.  Who are they and why are they doing what they are doing and why is it that we the people have never been asked whether we want this or don't want it?  This in microcosm is what America 2010 is all about on a political level.

I see half this nation as lost in a passive lotus-eater's dream.  Mexico is not the only "narco-state."  We are one too.  How many people bother to vote?  How many of those have any in-depth knowledge of or interest in the issues?  How many under-30s care about anything beyond the world according to Facebook?  One-tenth of our population is now illegal trespassers.  How many care enough to do anything about it?  We are a few years from being "Greece"--why are we not massing in the streets?

We talk about solving problems as a nation, but the truth is we stopped being That One Nation a long time ago.  The people who still give a damn had better take some action to save what's left and they'd better do it damn soon.