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Good morning to you all, and to anyone wanting to chime in to this which I am about to post.

Yesterday and today have been the only times since joining where I have been in fear of losing my membership. Please, someone help me to understand this thread.

Personally, I am of the position that illegal immigration is wrong. My belief, is that if you are breaking one of our laws in America, then something negative should result to hopefully inflict enough pain so that lawbreaking will be less likely in the future. In my household as a parent, the same system applies. If my children willfully disobey, then a negative consequence will result.

Having been a psychology major in college, early on in my studies, all students learned about the methods of positive and negative reinforcement and how they can be used. Rewarding a behavior encourages it; negatively affecting a behavior discourages it. In my opinion, this is why welfare never worked. It rewarded bad behaviors, and did not encourage trying to do better or self-improvement. An easy way to teach my youngest child to hit her sister, would have been to give her a small pack of m-n-ms for each time she whacked her sister. I do not own a dog, but many people I know do own one. Some of these folks chose to use positive reinforcement to teach their dogs to perform certain behaviors and/or to learn to do some tricks. Every time their dogs do or did something desirable, the dogs received a treat of some kind. If the doggie soiled inside the home, some used negative reinforcement such as a firm reprimand to deter further incidents.

Regardless of what the Pope, my senators, my parents, my husband and/or my President believe, I believe that immigration is a privilege and not a birthright. There is a legal process in the United States for non-citizens to apply to become an American. I support it wholeheartedly as the U.S. is a beautiful place of opportunity in which to live. I believe that no one should be allowed to "cut" in line, either. Wait in line, just like everyone else following the rules. Kids shouldn't get away with this in school. People shouldn't do this at amusement parks waiting to ride a roller coaster. Immigrants shouldn't do this to other immigrants.

All this aside, I have supported President Bush and the Republicans 100%. I have not criticized President Bush at all - for anything that he believes. Through my eyes, President Bush is a man of conviction and a man of God. I have trusted him implicitly in all of his decisions...even those regarding immigration. I haven't an ounce of doubt that he loves this country and wants to protect it and that he makes every decision to do the right thing before God. And while I do not know the President personally and cannot read his mind to see his larger understanding of his plan regarding illegal immigration in the United States, I go to sleep at night feeling that the President is on top of everything on my behalf.

I am a team player, which is why I cannot stand to hear people criticizing our President and the Bush Administration. I cannot stand to listen to Democrats and the loudmouths of Hollywood making accusations, pointing fingers, and constantly criticizing those who are leading this nation! I get angry when individual soldiers decide they don't want to play by the rules of their military "team." I am intolerant of Michael Moore making a movie about how rotten he thinks our President and nation are. We all have free speech, but shouldn't common decency standards be addressed somewhere and sometime? Shouldn't there be a time when folks need to "zip it" ... for the TEAM?

I am so incredibly proud and honored to be a FReeper and to be a part of this team, however I am needing a bit of clarity and advice regarding the topic of this thread. I do not want to be banned, so I am asking for your thoughts. Is my FReeper page something that is deemed unacceptable? Am I a candidate for the chopping block? And regarding the current FR Poll...please, tell me that how we vote is not an indicator of those who would be banned.

Thank you for your time.

:)