Posted on 09/27/2004 11:40:43 PM PDT by Robert Lomax
The U.S. has no plans to deploy troops along the Mexican border to stanch the deluge of illegal aliens currently pouring into the country at the rate of 3 million per year, President Bush said in an interview broadcast on Monday.
"As the governor of Texas, I was very aware of this issue," Bush told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly.
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"There is a long border, that makes it hard to control. We have beefed up places along the border to try to stop" the flow, he said. When told that his policy didn't seem to be working, Bush insisted, "It’s working a little better.
"They're doing a pretty good job down in Arizona, which is the main border crossing. ... I think there's a thousand more border patrol agents along the border. We’re modernizing border techniques, we’re using better surveillance methods to stop this crossing at the border."
The president contended, however, that illegal immigration was driven primarily by the economic realities of the region.
"If you can make 50 cents in the interior of Mexico and five bucks in the interior of the United States, you're coming for the five bucks," he explained.
"I happen to believe the best way to enhance the border is to have temporary-worker cards available for people," he said. "I think the long-term solution for this issue on our border is for Mexico to grow a middle class. That's why I believe in NAFTA."
When warned that "a lot of people are not going to like that answer," Bush told O'Reilly, "Well it’s a, a truthful answer."
They say that the mad love to laugh. Thay may explain your misplaced chuckles and guffaws.
As far as certainty goes, it's you who assert that there is a wide mandate for dranonian tactics on the border, yet have failed to substantiate that in any way.
again, you still have not answered my challenge for any data supporting your insistence that there is a strong public mandate for draconian tactics on the Mexican border. Indeed, you have chosen to ignore it not once but twice.
That speaks volumes for you. HINT: It isn't flattering.
So where's the data, son?
Not anymore. The GOP has taken my vote and support for granted and assumed I had pledged absolute fealty to them and to Bush.
You are the exception.
The usual experience of the single-issue voter is that they are likely to either no-show or deliberately work to throw the election to a Democrat if they don't get every jot and tittle of their program.
Incidentally...you are helping reinforce the above image.
From a pure cost-benefit analysis, getting your one vote costs the GOP more than one vote elsewhere. You have failed to demonstrate that keeping you happy is worth losing swing voters who don't view the issue the same way you do.
agree that a national ID system would be horrific. But i think that the national guard and/or military at the border is a different issue, respectfully.
The important issue is bolded for your easy reference.
Bottom line: keeping you happy has to generate more votes than not keeping you happy.
And, by and large...keeping any single-issue voting group happy is a demonstrated vote-loser. The inability of your faction to field viable candidates in the primaries is a symptom of this. To get his base to turn out, the anti-illegal immigrant candidate has to adopt rhetoric that scares off the less committed on this issue and convinces them, "If this guy gets nominated, we are going to get creamed in November, and the Democrat is guaranteed to be much worse on every issue, not just this one." They are the mirror-image of the Michael Moore/Howard Dean wing of the Democrat Party.
You want this perception to change, you're going to have to demonstrate that you can generate more votes than you drive away.
Pick a candidate you know will be solid on this issue in your district in 2006, and commit to backing him even if he doesn't satisfy your itching ears at each and every opportunity. Get others to do likewise. Get him elected.
If you can do it in a previously Democratic district, so much the better. Winning a seat away from the opposition would give your candidate a lot of influence at the get-go. Look at the influence Duncan Hunter has--he got it because he won a district that had been yellow-dog Democrat for decades.
And you're going to have to accept that changing the situation is a long-term project. It didn't happen overnight; it is not going to be fixed overnight. The Founding Fathers did not make a system of government that would generate results quickly; they designed it to prevent that from happening.
And some will test the issue.
If the rules of engagement are tight, there is a high chance of the illegals evading the patrols...thus destroying their deterrent value.
If the rules of engagement are loose, they get shot, and CNN splashes a picture of 9-year-old Paco trying to stick his guts back into his abdominal cavity over America's breakfast. The troops are pulled out by lunch.
It's called "consequence management," and the concept completely escapes those who advocate sticking troops on the border.
A lot of people do watch CNN.
I'd only approve if they show the buzzards picking at the eyeballs as the Coyotes try to run off with the large intenstine.
Unfortunately for your cause, your piece of the electorate--the animal-torturing-drooling-psychopath-future-serial-killer piece--isn't big enough to swing the election.
The current verification system utilizes existing databases. It does not record any information about an prospective employee or the employer. It merely returns a true or false on whether the social security number and name combination submitted or valid. The employer uses the system, not the government.
It's also the loss of sovereignty of our country --- the Mexican government seems to believe it has quite a lot of say in our laws, it's been given the authority to set up a separate Identification system and control over the border.
Also --- massive migration of it's people out of the country is actually worsening conditions in Mexico --- we don't need such an unstable neighbor -- we need things to move the other direction --- they are becoming completely parasitic --- totally dependent on the dollars being wired back every month, and on NAFTA cheap-labor jobs besides the money obtained by the drug cartels.
The flooding of our country with the cheapest possible labor works against the natural balance --- wages go up only when a labor shortage makes corporations compete for labor --- higher wages and benefits like health insurance are offered to attract labor -- or else they go up with unionization and violence. Huge pools of illiterate cheap labor brings wages down to a level that pushes more government handouts --- the illegals might bring over 8 or 9 children, agree to work for $4 an hour --- but they are not able to support their families on those wages, they are not able to afford their own health care or much else.
I doubt it's easier --- it almost couldn't be easier. Look how this guy crossed over the southern border ---
Body of Mexican man found dead west of Columbus
The Canadian border might also be that easy to get over --- but terrorists wouldn't face any scrutiny flying into Mexican airports then heading north -- if the bribe was right.
So what's your solution? Very very very few illegals or other immigrants coming over the Mexican border are coming with any kind of health insurance --- they may or may not be working -- but most were willing to take jobs providing no health insurance or a wage high enough to buy their own health care --- do you believe the government must continue confiscating an ever high amount of working Americans' wages to pay for all this free care? Or should those ER's just shut down for lack of paying patients? We're about an inch away from completely Socialized medicine.
The Canadians don't screen at all; the terrorist simply asks for asylum and starts getting welfare checks immediately.
They exist but are enforced for OTM's (other than mexicans) only.
Maybe --- still if you want fast access to any American city or town --- the Mexican border is the way to go --- after all, you only have to connect with the drug cartels who have vast networks of distribution set up -- contacts throughout the USA and very established smuggling routes. As fast as they can get a shipment of cocaine into the USA and distributed, they can get whatever other kind of shipment over here. No way can Canadians compete with that.
Do you remember when the Bush administration, a few months ago, was talking about the seriousness of terrorists crossing the Iran/Iraq border and how it was imperative that they close it? I thought that it was pretty sad that he was more worried about that border than our own.
O’REILLY: So you’re not gonna militarize the border to stop ...
BUSH: No. We’re gonna use the Border Patrol and beef it up and make it - give it better technologies and better equipment to do its job.
O’REILLY: OK. Ya’ know, a lot of people are not gonna like that answer. You know that?
BUSH (shrugging it off): What’s it to - truthful answer.
I think he was going to say "What's it to them? They don't matter."
I am so peed off at this guy.
There are nearly ten million Americans chronically unemployed in this country, there are an estimated thirteen million illegal aliens in this country.
How many of that ten million unemployed are willing to pick tomatoes for a living if they can't find a job in their normal field?
Not many, not many at all.
Would you?
In October 2001, it was reported that 100,000 people had lost their jobs in the airline industry as a result of the attacks on 9/11.?
How many of those flight attendants do you believe would have taken a job in lawn maintenance or roofing?
As a stand alone issue, illegal immigration doesn't get a bleep in the radar of American opinion, it doesn't mean that it isn't an important issue, it's just that the people in general don't think it is as important as people in this forum make it to be.
I can imagine Kerry could become anti-immigrant in the name of security, the same way certain Democrat liberals have begun to trash Jews and Israel because they think it curries favor with other groups that promise to give them more of an edge. The KKK used to be predominately Democrat ....not THAT long ago...remember?
Stop and think man.
These terrorists have millions in cash at their disposal...they don't NEED to come across in the middle of the night.
But this answer: "BUSH: No. We’re gonna use the Border Patrol and beef it up and make it - give it better technologies and better equipment to do its job." is really not too bad if he'd follow through. I'm not convinced the military has to be there --- I could see the military on certain parts of the border where it's become quite dangerous. There are other practical methods --- like making those bringing in illegals pay for the whole costs of their illegals --- kind of "you want them, you pay for them" especially their health care.
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