Posted on 07/25/2007 2:45:18 AM PDT by ari-freedom
You're Fred Thompson. As a former U.S. senator you had a pleasant and lucrative career acting in a tv show. Then an opening unexpectedly appeared in the contest for the GOP nomination, because there were no candidates acceptable to conservatives. The most important issue to conservatives was immigration. You made a few general statements indicating a readiness to enforce our country's immigration laws and guard its borders. These comments immediately translated into significant popular support and turned you into a viable prospect for the Republican nomination, even though you had not formally declared your candidacy. Then you appointed as your campaign manager former U.S. senator Spencer Abraham from Michigan. Abraham is most famous as an arrogant open-borders fanatic in his work as chairman of the Senate immigration sub-committee in the late 1990s. He was so bad on immigration that in 2000 Michigan conservatives and Republicans voted for Spencer's challenger, pro-abortion liberal Democrat Debbie Stabenow, in order to drive Spencer from the Senate. Abraham lost his Senate seat because of his commitment to open borders, pure and simple.
Are you not aware that it was your statements on immigration that, mild as they were, gave you a shot at the presidency? ...
(Excerpt) Read more at amnation.com ...
Just so you know what side of the room I sit on, I will admit that I am paranoid about Middle Eastern people. I don’t care if they want to call themselves Christians or Muslims, I do not trust them, I see no reason to trust and I get nervous when our leaders appear to trust them.
IMO the Muslims are a bunch of rugriders whose religion orders them to obliterate the infidels from the earth. In their opinion, us Christians are infidels, so that makes us their enemies and should make them our enemies.
I have never seen a Middle Easterner protest any event or action that I would join in with them. I will never hire a ME nor permit one to come in my home. Sorry folks, but that’s the way I am and I don’t think I am going to change.
Given Spencer Abraham’s record of kowtowing to Arab, Muslim, and foreign interests on virtually every national security issue, it bothers me to know that Fred would probably put this man in as SECRETARY of STATE or on his Cabinet. Fred will not be getting my approval for President.
What ideas? Campaign finance reform? What, exactly, are the thoughts inside the head of this faux actor? Cripes, talk about buying a can of worms from a used car salesman...
No one has “bought” anything YET, moron. We are patiently waiting for him to say. Why cut him out before he’s even been heard???
Is Thompson out of his mind picking this guy?
Actions or Words...
I consider Israel to be a true friend and I consider the Arab countries to be a Johnny come lately looking for the US dollars.
>Is Thompson out of his mind picking this guy?<
Yes, I think this was a major error. I have a feeling that I’ll be voting for Hunter and encouraging others to do the same.
>But I’m concerned about Abraham and will be doing more checking on Thompson’s reaction to our stuned reactions here on FR.<
I will be interested in what the reaction is. Please try to remember to ping me.
Yikes!
I could cut Thompson some slack if he had named someone who may have not been conservative enough on immigration if the guy had some political savvy and smarts. In this case, Abraham does not represent the ideology that I would like, but I cannot see him bringing any political savvy whatsoever. Fred is an actor. Actors needs direction. Reagan was his own man, but chose excellent people to give him directions and they were good enough that he did not have to go against them many times. I had real hopes for Thompson, Spencer Abraham does not have the kind of record or experience to give one the hope that Thompson’s campaign is going to rise above the rest of the very mediocre pack.
MArtinez, Gonzales, Mehlman - they didn’t mirror Bush’s warped perspective of the Mexican Reconquista?
I have feelings of disquietude over the fact that Hunter was a career politician, apparently has the support of the Bushes, and now this.
This is a slowly developing situation.
I still think Hunter is the best candidate, and intend to support him or Thompson. But if the campaign unfolds and Thompson appears to be a Bush II clone - a watered down Democrat, its third aprty time.
If the government is admitting to there being 12 million, you can bet your sweet bippy it's more likely 25 million. And when you open the doors to the 25 million law-breakers, you can count on at least another 10 million of their relatives coming over in short order. That's 35 million people within a few years time, LEGALLY ALLOWED to partake of all the services paid by law-abiding American citizens, which was to be for the citizens, not criminals who, by corrupt government proxies, are allowed to steal away from and siphon away from my children and grandchildren, what was NEVER intended to be theirs.
No it didn’t. So what makes us think that if we can’t even lock it down than how we can ship back the ones here?
Wanting to get “revenge” because they broke the law is not worth bankrupting the treasury or greatly increasing the crime rate on violent crimes and robbery/prostitution once these folks are shaken out of their current jobs. You will find very few Americans willing to pay that price. they will buy the fence but not the export costs. That will be several factors more expensive, possibly eclipsing the War.
Above the argument was made that it worked so well in 1986, in reference to the continuation of illegal access. there is your answer to the question of returning these folks. If the will was not there for prevention, which is easier and more cost effective, then where is the will going to come from to support such a massive undertaking, one that will exceed our current detention capacity by 6 fold, if the jails were currently empty, and our man power needs by a factor of the same magnitude?
Again in deference to the first time this happened, we did not control the boarder afterward. I think this go around the will is there for that. I worry that going past that will backfire, even if we could do it, which is beyond impossible at this time. Hell just for transportation alone, it will take several years to coordinate and arrange. Even at a rate of 3000 returned daily, which is a good number, it will take 13 years working 7 days a week,. Where will you house the ones before they leave? What about the ones that disappear into the cash economy or worse crime?
However, if you can present to me a realistic solution that takes into account the cost benefit, the will of the people, the liberal mind of the press to make this look bad,the fact that this job would fall to the federal government, who takes over a year to order computer mice, if you can get me your plan to house and transport these people in a manner that won't freak out the average American's sensibilities, go for it...
Enforcing the law is not seeking "revenge". It's enforcing the law. The law is supposed to be obeyed by everyone, not some. Some should not be rewarded for breaking the law, while others pay for breaking the law. If you think giving amnesty will not cost U.S. taxpayers, you are clueless. It is already costing U.S. taxpayers MILLIONS, via law enforcement, jailing, education, housing, and medical services. That's not counting the lost of income because of decreased wages their presence has caused, bankruptcies of hospitals they have caused, increase in taxes they have caused, loss of quality education for American citizens, they have caused.
I am not an advocate for breaking any laws, but in this case it will be way too hard to do it from a deportation standpoint. Maybe some fine or something. I am not clueless in the least. I know what a drain they are, trust me I see it. But that's in large part to their status and not being able to be officially employed. Even at that, you think they are draining millions now, rounding them up and shipping them back will cost BILLIONS. Few Americans will see the return on investment as being acceptable when we see that many will get into jobs with insurance etc. which will decrease the current drain.
However like I said if you can come up with a way to pull it off, go get 'em and call me when you are ready.
It’s simple. Tom Tancredo has been saying it for quite some time, and if our government had followed what he’d been saying, you would already have seen an effect. When an illegal is arrested, for any reason, they get deported.
As it is right now, they aren’t arrested unless they are committing a crime (besides the one of being here illegally).
Go after employers who hire them, in earnest. Bush has 3 employer sanctions to his credit during 2004. That’s hardly trying to do something about employers hiring illegals.
The government needs to respond to employer verifications of lawful status to hiring, within a timely fashion, instead of taking their usual 3 to 6 months to respond/verify. The government should be sharing information about stolen social security numbers, rather than keeping it private from each other.
There are numerous things that COULD be done, but this government is UNWILLING to do it.
Then there’s the matter of the fence which has been funded, for which there’s almost a million dollars waiting. They’ve complete an hysterical 13 miles. If they were a private company, they’d have been fired long ago for poor service.
THAT is the first problem.
The point was that you basically advocated repeating the 1986 Amnesty Act. Which caused more problems than it solved.
The Dems in office had no intention of enforcing border security back then - Reagan was promised it, but was lied to. Now, the Dems AND the majority of the Republicans have no intention of enforcing border security. There’s no chance it would happen once 20+ million illegals are amnestied.
But the main point that open borders advocates like you ignore is that we don’t need to ship one illegal back. Enforcing existing laws punishing employers is all we need to do. When the jobs dry up and the free handouts are minimized, the illegals will self-deport. They managed to get here, they can manage to get back, I’ve no doubt.
Tanc’s idea works if the numbers are small. But how many arrest actions would it take and where do you put them if you could even accelerate that, and who would do it. Also don’t forget, at that rate, the difficulty of apprehension goes up. When it gets out that we are actually doing this, you think these folks are going to set and wait until its their turn? Even if you arrested 10,000 in the first week, the rest will go deep, then the numbers drop.
So the question remains one of scale. how do we go past a few traffic stops and raids, quickly and without warning, to a full scale mobilization of force to get them quickly enough to make a difference. We have not even built 13 miles of fence yet as you said. And accelerate verification, OK, like that could happen, but then who goes out and gets them.
That’s only partial solution.
Getting tough on illegals who are arrested and employers who hire them would lead to illegals leaving on their own volition, in great numbers more than who are arrested.
Their numbers will decrease by attrition....just like how their numbers increased.
Take away the benefits they are handed left and right, the jobs, the get out of jail free cards they receive, they’ll start leaving.
This worked, btw, before, when a president was serious about getting rid of illegals.
It worked.
It would still work.
And once numbers are down to more manageable levels, and the fence is built, law enforcement, state and federal, will not be so overwhelmed with dealing with GOING AFTER them.
It will take years to accomplish this, perhaps not as many years as it took years to get the invasion level we are currently at.
There are no overnight solutions. But standing around talking about it only increases their numbers.
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