I would debate you on the guest worker program - I think increased legal immigration after the borders are secured would be a better way to go, given the problems Europe has created with its guest worker programs.
Otherwise, we're of pretty similar viewpoints and I think your positions are squarely conservative. And I do agree some folks on the borderbot side take things too far, but that is more a symptom of problems with internet discourse.
The reason I am so inflexible about border security first is threefold - first, Reagan's failed amnesty shows we need security first and status changes second. Next, Bush is forming alliances with Dems and RINOs to get his agenda, just as he did with the Medicare prescription benefit - and that indicates he is on the wrong side of the issue, something that his boosters simply cannot bring themselves to even consider, despite the history of bad things happening when Bush and Ted Kennedy are on the same side of an issue (such as education and Medicare prescription benefits).
And third, I see Bush just causing irreperable harm to the GOP over this issue. He doesn't even have to drop his guest worker proposal - just put it off a couple of years and instead work to improve security and enforcement in the meantime. I disagree with guest workers, but am willing to debate and compromise once border security is improved.
But all we hear from the Bush supporters is that the border bots are jeopardizing the GOP, when it is Bush's stance here that is causing the harm. So we are stuck debating posters who refuse to learn from history, refuse to see that Bush being allied with the Dems is an indicator that he is up to no good on this issue, and get it completely backwards as to who is harming the party over this issue.
Which makes it rather hard to have any kind of reasoned discourse - you cannot use reason to coax someone out of a position that they did not use reason to get into. And I wouldn't care, except for the fact that so much is at stake here.
" you cannot use reason to coax someone out of a position that they did not use reason to get into. "
I had a fascinating exchange yesterday with justshutupandtakeit about the FR bloodbath that occurred around the Schaivo thing. We were on opposite sides, but I think we have now agreed that too many were so emotionally invested (on both sides) that all discussions were based almost solely on emotion. Everybody just talked past one another. Wounds were opened and re-opened, and rifts were made that, for some, have not healed to this day.
It's not too late on immigration - yes, we are all entrenched in our positions, but except for a few, this is still an abstract argument. Yes, middle TN is absolutely overrun with illegals, but I have yet to be a victim of illegal alien crime, or have an auto accident with an uninsured illegal, or lose a job to one. Not that these things aren't important, but it means I can discuss it dispassionately. That was impossible with Schaivo (for both sides).
I daresay most folks are like me - they see ilegals every day, but they don't have an burning hatred based on a personal victimhood at the hands of illegals (I know there have been a few here, but their number is very small).
Therefore, I still have hope that we can discuss this rationally, if we can get past the "personality" and "clique" issues many seem to be having here.