There are many people who absolutely do support, promote, encourage, and enable illegal immigration. There is a lot of money in illegal immigration at every step.
This is true. But I sincerely doubt you will find many on this site that do. There have been some, since banned, who openly supported that position. They were clearly here to drive a wedge between conservatives in a misguided ploy to suppress the vote this Fall. There are others who don't care enough to do background checks. But those are in the distinct minority. Most of us want border security heightened, the tide stemmed, a better system employed to do background checks among other things... and our arguments have been over the method of doing these things.
For that, some of us have been called OBLs. For me, the important thing to remember is that money drives this entire issue...from all sides. It is the single motivating factor. Once someone tells me that "I'm not in this for the money"—which can also be read as "power"— I no longer look at them as honest people. I don't care if you are an illegal, a democrat, a republican, a liberal, a conservative or a flat our Marxist, communist Castroian. You are in this for the money. That is the bottom line and I look at this entire issue through that lens.
I continually ask myself, "what will this "solution" do to the economy." Letting ILLEGAL immigrants into the country willy-nilly HURTS our economy. Letting LEGAL immigrants into the country HELPS our economy. It's as simple as that. That is where the rub is for me in relationship to Buchanan's position. He wants to block out the LEGAL immigrants. I believe that is wrong, anti-American and would hurt our country enormously. Others have accused me as being an "open border" person because of that stance. There is a fundamental difference between open borders and accepting large numbers of immigrants. In fact, if I had my way I'd rather see us cut immigration from hostile nations, including France ;-), and up the number we accept from Mexico. That is because we MUST look at security as a Global issue, not just a "water's edge" issue. When you see guys like Chavez, you realize that they could easily gain a foothold in a country as corrupt as Mexico. Therefore we must do as much as we possibly can to keep our border states as friendly as possible. That can not be lost in this discussion either.
What got me into the most trouble originally, was questioning one faction of the Minute Men who were making huge promises, raising money and allying themselves with several, what I call fundamentalist Conservatives (those who ignore the practical political realities on the ground which means they always loose elections...but their perfection is intact). That particular group has very little to show for their efforts other than raising the issue, for which I am grateful. But the things that have been promised, have yet to materialize. They are poster children for not understanding the concept of "choosing ones battles" which is a personal button of mine, and has been known to lead me into exasperated posting.
What bothers me is that lack of transparency can actually do so much damage to the effort to stem the tide of illegal immigrants. People tend to run screaming from corruption, and unless our own house is in order, we could end up screwing this up. I get very passionate about that...but, once again that must mean I'm part of the OBL.
In any case, with every hot button issue, people get banned. But once you turn on your own team, that is totally reasonable. There are many of us who get a long absolutely fine, even though we have strong disagreements on many, many issues. And there are a few here, that I can't remember ever agreeing with in specifics (although we agree on principle.) But never once have those folks ever wished me hung from a tree, or asked to have me kicked out of this forum (at least to my knowledge, ha!)—and I have never felt that way about them. I do start feeling that way about people who advocate killing off those who disagree, or saying that other people are not good enough conservatives, or tossing around personal attacks. Yes, I will admit to wishing they would go away so we could discuss the issues.
Once you cross that line, it is very difficult to take back. In fact, while I think most of what Nancy Pelosi says is absolute garbage...I don't wish her dead either. I wish her to be voted back into oblivion. I wish her political philosophy to fall into broad disfavor. But that is as far as it goes with my political opponents. Heck, I don't even wish Hillary dead. I wish her into obscurity and out of my misery...but not dead.
Anyway, thanks for the civil post. I think the entire concept of civility is often lost in cars and on Internet forums. Which makes one wonder if it every really was there in the first place. : D.
Have a terrific evening. I hope we cross paths again.
I also agree with you on many points. You have a good evening also.