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Bordering on Fraud (Thomas Sowell)
Townhall.com ^ | May 23, 2006 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 05/23/2006 8:25:20 AM PDT by Gordongekko909

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To: cpdiii

So, it's not an open and shut case that the illegals are taking jobs away from Americans. Perhaps it's good for the jobs to disappear. But as I suggested in an earlier post, we miss very much many of the jobs that used to exist in this country but are gone now because of minimum wage laws.


181 posted on 05/24/2006 8:46:33 AM PDT by zook
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To: marron

If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them with immigration reform? If they can't, or won't, secure the border, why should we trust them in office at all?

You say it best. Nothing more needs to be said. Both parties think we're all stupid and they can pacify us simply by passing laws with the fine print full of holes that effectively negate those laws. Both houses can then claim they're doing something while working to undermine the intent of the laws.

There may be some good guys in congress but if in doubt or if you're uninformed the best approach is to NOT vote for the incumbents in '06.


182 posted on 05/24/2006 8:51:40 AM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: EternalVigilance

Our national sovereignty and the value of the rule of law is beyond economic price.

Great words above. Now if only we can find leaders who believe the same.


183 posted on 05/24/2006 8:57:57 AM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: stephenjohnbanker

Meanwhile, we have trained well over 200,000 Iraqi security forces while guerilla warfare raged around them.

You forget however that Iraq doesn't have President Fox as opposition.


184 posted on 05/24/2006 9:01:40 AM PDT by Joan Kerrey
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To: Gordongekko909

There's something else at play here. We've been told for how long that the Social Security system is broke. Yet we're giving Social Security to millions of illegal immigrants. Are we planning on forming an American Union (or Alliance) with the countries to our south? Or are we looking for millions of workers to pay into our broken Social Security system, or other broken systems? I heard someone mention Medicare. Something that we're unaware of is going on. And naturally nobody will tell us the plan.


185 posted on 05/24/2006 9:18:45 AM PDT by my_pointy_head_is_sharp (We're living in the Dark Ages.)
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To: Gordongekko909

Love Sowell. I especially enjoy him when Walter Williams is subbing for Rush.


186 posted on 05/24/2006 10:25:57 AM PDT by Aeronaut ("Endless repetition is not a coherent argument." —Thomas Sowell)
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To: EternalVigilance
Our national sovereignty and the value of the rule of law is beyond economic price.

The globalist economic money-worshippers will gnash their teeth at you for saying that, but it bears repeating and and big - BTTT. - OB1

187 posted on 05/24/2006 10:47:29 AM PDT by OB1kNOb (This is no time for bleeding hearts, pacifists, and appeasers to prevail in free world opinion.)
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To: OB1kNOb

Making them gnash their teeth is half the fun!

;-)


188 posted on 05/24/2006 10:51:50 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (George Allen's conservatism is as ephemeral as his virtual fence.)
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To: Joan Kerrey
Now if only we can find leaders who believe the same.

They're out there.

We just gotta keep finding 'em and working until they're in office.

Can't let up.

189 posted on 05/24/2006 10:54:49 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (George Allen's conservatism is as ephemeral as his virtual fence.)
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To: OB1kNOb
We had one major victory in this cause last night in the First District of Idaho:

BILL SALI VICTORY A HUGE WIN FOR IDAHO FAMILIES

I know Bill Sali, and he gets it.

190 posted on 05/24/2006 10:58:14 AM PDT by EternalVigilance (George Allen's conservatism is as ephemeral as his virtual fence.)
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To: EternalVigilance

Kudos to Idaho on the outcome. The rest of us appreciate your important contribution to the real conservative cause.


191 posted on 05/24/2006 11:06:15 AM PDT by OB1kNOb (This is no time for bleeding hearts, pacifists, and appeasers to prevail in free world opinion.)
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To: zook
So, it's not an open and shut case that the illegals are taking jobs away from Americans. Perhaps it's good for the jobs to disappear. But as I suggested in an earlier post, we miss very much many of the jobs that used to exist in this country but are gone now because of minimum wage laws.

You are correct.

192 posted on 05/24/2006 11:24:22 AM PDT by cpdiii (Socialism is popular with the ruling class. It gives legitimacy to tyranny and despotism.)
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To: zook
IMHO Sowell's logic is, well, just what you expect from Thomas Sowell - flawless.

OTOH it doesn't address - nobody seems to address - the real issue. The real issue is how immigrants are brought up. We don't want Islamists, to take the most obvious example.

But even without that concern, there still is a difference between a Canadian and a Mexican. Although both countries inevitably (in the nature of things) define themselves partly by not being American, they still are quite different from each other. A Canadian emmigrant to the US will almost inevitably be a native speaker of English, albeit with a Canadian rather than an American accent. And Canada is not noted for the absence of a middle class, as is essentially true of Mexico.

And not only do Canadians speak English and belong to the middle class, Canadians don't come from a culture which still resents being defeated in war and dreams of reversing the decision of that war.


193 posted on 05/24/2006 3:43:28 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: zook
a "Sowell-bot."
IMHO Thomas Sowell is nearly always not merely right, but frequently presenting a thought which is new to me - and right. You find yourself disagreeing strongly with Thomas Sowell, your first thought should be to ask, "What am I overlooking?"

His observations are typically that astute. If that makes me a "Sowell-bot" to you, why then, so be it. I think most of us at one time or another have been called something worse than that.


194 posted on 05/24/2006 3:57:59 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: zook
there was a time not so terribly long ago, when anyone could immigrate to this country? Then we placed significant restrictions on immigration. Today, mostly because of economic demand, we find those immigration laws being violated on a massive scale. The idea that we can make this problem go away by simply "enforcing the law" is exactly like claiming we could have stopped illegal drinking the same way. Note that I'm not saying we should do away with all immigration laws. I'm just saying that in contrast to Sowell's point, we are not obligated to deport all illegals nor to refrain from changing the law.
All true, except that I am uncertain how that contrasts with Sowell's point. He says,
Yet another insult to our intelligence is saying that, since we cannot find and deport 12 million people, the only choice left is to find some way to make them legal.

There is probably no category of law-breakers -- from counterfeiters to burglars or from jay-walkers to murderers -- who can all be found and arrested. But no one suggests that we must therefore make what they have done legal.

. . . because what they already have is de facto amnesty; the US simply does not enforce its immigration law when it comes to poor Mexicans. Against Britons, yes - the government moved to deport the widow of one of the fallen in the WTC attack because she as a British citizen no longer had an American husband to justify her staying. And there was no talk that her American-born children were "anchor babies;" she could have left her children in America since they were American citizens by birth - but she, the INS insisted at the time, simply was no longer welcome under US law.

She was too much like an American to be allowed to stay, whereas Mexicans are poor, downtrodden masses and it would be heartless to discriminate against them. Again, Elian Gonzales made it to the US but the provenance of his arrival was too anticommunist for him to be allowed to stay. He would have been raised by a bunch of Republicans!


195 posted on 05/24/2006 4:21:58 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: Gondring
Tom Sowell(FOR PRESIDENT)
I wish he'd run so I could vote for him!
I didn't know of Thomas Sowell back then, but Reagan shoulda nominated him for VP . . . and then to SCOTUS. That's really where he has belonged, all these years - SCOTUS. Whether or not he has a law background. Face it, with his IQ (couldn't possibly be less than 150 or 160) he could pick up what he didn't know, in a week or two on the bench! And teach the legal beagles a thing or two about wisdom.

196 posted on 05/24/2006 4:49:27 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

You need to read the whole exchange. "Sowell-bot" was my sarcastic way of describing someone who felt that Sowell's words ought not even be challenged. I'm a great admirer of Sowell and have read most of his books. I believe he's not entirely right on this for the reasons I've pointed out here.


197 posted on 05/24/2006 6:36:12 PM PDT by zook
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To: zook
I'm a great admirer of Sowell and have read most of his books. I believe he's not entirely right on this for the reasons I've pointed out here.
I saw that in your early post, but I also saw what seemed to me that you were slightly misrepresenting his argument.

He did not make the particular argument that you would have made, and you jumped from there to the idea that he was actually wrong. Which, IMHO, was incorrect. And, as someone who also has read a good many of his books (how does he write so many?), IMHO that is ordinarily a terrible bet. Not that I hold that in principle it couldn't happen . . .


198 posted on 05/25/2006 12:52:58 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters except PR.)
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