Excellent senmtiment!
The President was great on O'Reilly last night, truthful, confident, giving coherant answers -- and then he truthfully shows us all there will not be even an attempt at effective, sensible border control.
The President is very up-front about it - NAFTA, FTAA to the max until Latin America's standard of living rises to the point where it matches the U.S.'s falling standard of living. Then there will be $5/hour [the President's number} jobs on both sides of the border. Plenty of them.
Makes sense to me. I simply don't agree with his plan.
Solution...
1. Scrutinize, optimize, and minimize welfare programs, ensuring only the honestly needy are taken care of.
...it's way too easy to defraud the system, and the standards are too low anyway.
2. Wake up to the reality that Americans will not be in favor of living in a walled in country.
...We are a free people, and we like it that way. Besides, I can see the headlines now...President Chirac: "Mr. President, TEAR DOWN THAT WALL!"
3. Apply equal and fair treatment to the Mexicans as we do to the Canadians. Especially in terms of jobs and joint economic programs.
...In other words, give them their respect. The canucks have had a free ride for way too long, and imho, it's undeserved. Why do we close down US plants to build in Mexico, and yet, we give the Canadians (Quebec) money to keep our plants up there open?
NAFTA may not be THE answer, but it is a part of the overall "equalization" of economies. Now, this may not sit well with some who are used to denigrating and looking down upon the Mexicans, but we do need a somewhat balanced economic infrastructure in N.America. Ever heard of the EU? China? The reality is, they are our competitors now, and they are gaining ground on us...fast. We, very well, could become economically isolated. I see those signs already. We need to give the Mexicans a big hug, metaphorically speaking, but under our terms. :) And that's the challenge that, I think, Bush is trying to deal with.
4. Enforcing the existing laws is useless, as they were written a million years ago for a vastly different world. We need to scrap the immigration act and begin anew.
fwiw, I have an idea. First, someone needs to figure out how many people our Country can hold with the current infrastructure, and then set a yearly entry limit. Now, let's suppose we look at the US as a brand, if you will, 'cause we do have a tremendous "brand recognition" factor. Then we look at immigration as a commodity. Now, taking these factors into consideration, it only makes sense to create laws that treat being in this country as a valuable experience, right? Then why do we give that away without any investment? I think those wanting to live here, either permanently or temporarily, should "invest" of themselves. They should be required to learn our basic laws, traditions, customs, and know exactly what's expected of them while they are here. And be accountable to this. There, also, should be a waiting period, to allow for proper vetting of applicants. So, what we do is, setup "America" schools in our Embassies, using US Marines as instructors, under the supervision of the Ambassador staff, for a period of one or two years. This gives us time to decide and vet their entry, and them to decide if they really, really want to live here under our terms.
I know it sounds nutty, but we ARE filling up here, and not with the best (as in decent) people the world has to offer.
Now, the Dum’s will never go for this because, as we all know, the more educated and decent people we have in this country, the more Repub’s we’ll also have.
OK, now flame…
:O)
P