Problem is, while they know what communism is, they also know how to profit underground.
:O)
P
Posted on 05/24/2007 12:02:11 AM PDT by familyop
Mitt Romney is rightly being hit for his flip-flop on immigration. However, Fred Thompson's "tough" stance isn't exactly enough to make him the restrictionists' hero, either.
As recently as 2006, Mr. Thompson clearly stated that some sort of legalization — or "amnesty" — would be necessary. He seems to be for a virtual border fence (like President Bush) instead of a brick-and-mortar one. And he doesn't want tough sanctions for employers.
This all puts Mr. Thompson roughly in line with Rudy Giuliani.
On a path to citizenship: "[B]ecause we allowed ourselves to wait until we woke up one day and found 12 million illegals here, there's no easy solution. And I think that you have to realize that you're either going to drive 12 million people underground permanently, which is not a good solution. You're going to get them all together and get them out of the country, which is not going to happen. Or you're going to have to, in some way, work out a deal where they can have some aspirations of citizenship, but not make it so easy that it's unfair to the people waiting in line and abiding by the law." (Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," 4/3/06)
On the problems with cracking down on employers: "We haven't enforced the law, in terms of employers. … For 20 years, we've not enforced the law, and that's a part of the problem. You can't enforce it all on the backs of the employers. People falsify information that they give employers and all that. That's not a solution to the problem." (Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," 4/3/06)
On his skepticism of a brick-and-mortar border fence: FOX's ALAN COLMES: "You don't put up a fence, either, do you? Is that bad neighbor policy, put a fence up?" THOMPSON: "If it would work. I mean, I don't know – that's a technical problem. In this day and age, I would not think you would have to use bricks and mortar to get that job done. But we ought to do everything that we can to get it done to the extent that we can and then, as I say, I think people would be willing to take a look at the rest of the problem, what we do with the problem that we created." (Fox News' "Hannity & Colmes," 4/3/06)
On enforcement first: "We woke up one day after years of neglect and apparently discovered that we have somewhere between 12 million and 20 million illegal aliens in this country. So it became an impossible situation to deal with. I mean, there's really no good solution. So what do you do? You have to start over. Well, I'm concerned about the next 12 million or 20 million. So that's why enforcement, and enforcement at the border, has to be primary." (Fox's "Fox News Sunday," 3/11/07)
On not rounding up illegal immigrants: "You know, if you have the right kind of policies, and you're not encouraging people to come here and encouraging them to stay once they're here, they'll go back, many of them, of their own volition, instead of having to, you know, load up moving vans and rounding people up. That's not going to happen." (Fox's "Fox News Sunday," 3/11/07)
I would prefer people from the former Soviet bloc, who KNOW what communism is like. They wouldn’t be marching in the streets demanding things and attacking the police.
Kind of like how I said there could be no perfect church, because if there was one I’d join it. :-)
Well, you know the old saw about "a partial truth is a full UNTRUTH"? This applies in this case. When you stop desperately grabbing at partial truths peddled by Rudybot fruitcakes in the NY Post, then I'll start giving you and your candidate more credibility.
On issues involving big biz/big gov fleecing the rest of us, I fully expect dishonesty from the Wall St. Journal, the GOP, and all their sock puppets on tv, up to and including the president. There, I said it.
But if he is wise enough and learns from what’s happening, he could honestly arrive at the correct position.
I have more faith in him than the rest. He is not perfect, but he is by far the best we have to deal with.
RUN FRED RUN!
my impression is that neo-conservatives are people who support a liberal foreign policy (nation building, humanitarian intervention, and intervention in general), but do so with a basic belief in capitalism and free markets as the method of the solution.
basically liberal means to a conservative end.
they want to speed up globalization.
it sounds like a tempting idealogy, but i don't agree with it because it uses liberal means. we're not, nor should we be, the world's policeman or the world's mother. we should protect and grow our own country as an example to others and address threats as they appear. it's one giant slippery slope when you decide to use the government's power and influence to play God with the world.
Agreed. Frankly, I think what Thompson has said in this article is 100 percent right on with regard to illegal immigration. Putting it on the backs of employers to catch them, and thinking that rounding illegals up and shipping them back home will have any real effect, is misguided, short-sighted, and wrong. Those approaches are addressing the symptoms, not the cause, and that is why they will fail.
I LOVE that Fred Thompson recognizes this, and he has more courage in coming out and saying so than a thousand angry, red-faced, shouting Republicans who cannot see that deportation and punishing American employers for failures caused by government policies, is stupid.
The border is absolutely irrelevant with regard as to why the illegals are here. IRRELEVANT.
They're here because:
A) they can find relatively good-paying work and B) because liberals have created entitlement programs of freebies and priveleges (education, health care, food stamps, etc.) that invite them to come and STAY.
Republicans who think this is a border problem are behaving foolishly UNLESS they limit that thinking to Islamic Terrorists. That is the ONLY issue in which border security is relevant.
The illegal immigrant problem did not happen because of weak borders, so building a fence will not solve it. Fred Thompson is RIGHT about illegal immigration.
And another thing -- anyone who thinks that deporting 12 to 20 million people won't result in armed warfare and riots in Southwest cities is deluding themselves.
I like Fred Thompson because he is NOT deluding himself on this like so many blinded-by-their-anger Republicans are. And I LIVE IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA in the thick of it.
I am on the front lines, and I'm telling FReepers that the solutions to the illegal immigration problem lie in getting rid of liberal policies that invite illegals to come and stay here, and regulation policies that create an economy of falsely inflated minimum wage/employment requirements that make it nearly impossible for many employers to remain profitable without breaking employment laws.
There will be ZERO real solutions to the illegal immigration problem (I'm not talking about Islamic terrorists) by wasting money on a stupid fence.
I'm still trying to figure out what "regularized" means. ;o)
I came up with a hypothetical sitution: I SAID it would be hypocritical of me to bash a candidate for being a rabid abortionist and then find another (UNNAMED) pro-abortionist (example: Lincoln Chafee) to run.
We had a longtime freeper who pulled that kind of crap around here (MadIvan insisted that kind of voting record was unacceptable for a british prime minister, but if Giuliani votes that way, he should be our nominee), and that guy was banned pretty quickly.
But apprently the FredHeads have no problem screaming that Lindsey Graham is a homosexual traitor because he's buddies with McCain, weak on immigration, and voted for an unconstitutional "bi-partisan compromise"... and THEN you recruit a candidate with the EXACT same "credentials" to run for President. You hypocrites are truly shameless.
There is ZERO difference between Graham's record and Fred Thompson's. You can check Graham's "record" and you'll see he also has a "100% pro-life" record, but that doesn't stop YOU from calling him a RINO. But it takes "gall" to call Fred one when he votes EXACTLY the same way, eh?
Your double standards are really going to be exposed in the South Carolina primary. Good luck trying to simtaneously elect one guy President and throw another guy out of office for voting the same way.
The shameless one here is you.
Fred's record on immigration voting is mixed only because the group compiling the ratings commingled votes on legal versus illegal immigration. He consistently voted against illegal immigration interests - but then again, illegal immigration wasn't as large of an issue back then, so there simply were not that many votes to begin with.
So let's compare to where they stand today. Lindsey is the GOP leader in pushing shamnesty. Fred is saying secure the borders first.
Big difference.
But don't let that get in the way of your over-the-top attacks on Fred boosters.
So, back that up with citations and voting records.
The next place it shows up is among free traders. Turning around the previous argument, they alleged that protectionism was a form of restrictionism as the socialist Keynesians described it, seeking higher prices (and wages) by restricting supply to domestic sources, and further organizing that domestic production through trade associations, their deals with their unions, and the like.
Now in an immigration context, the moral would seem to be, restricting the free movement of people is restricting the supply of labor in an effort to support its price, and amounts to a form of labor protectionism, and with it labor restrictionism. Get there to be less labor performed, in order to support the price of labor. The economic criticism implied, then, would be that restricting the supply of labor, by restricting total work performed, makes us poorer not richer in the aggregate, since aggregate labor (plus capital income of course) is the source of net income.
It is typical that no distinction is made between being against illegal immigration (as illegal, uncontrolled, socially destructive, resisting assimilation, etc) and being against immigration. The opponent is imagined as a malthusian straw man, because an economic argument exists against one imaginary objection to amnesty.
Good information.
That's a vicious smear.
How about you prove that.
Thank you. Someone in a blog said that Thompson also voted in favor of the following. ...worth checking the Thomas.loc.gov site to see if that’s true.
Ban on Assault Weapons Sales to Juveniles, Amendment to S. 254
(1999, maybe?)
Thanks for that info. I won’t forget it.
You’re welcome. After the photos of him that we’ve been seeing around here, the following was a shocker, BTW. ...looks like he’s had a really hard time.
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.aolelectionsblog.com/media/2007/04/fred.thompson.200.043007.jpg
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