One Reporter's Opinion: Citizen Militia on the Border (George Putnam)

NewsMax.com ^ | 12/13/2002 | George Putnam

[MARTIAL MONK]

I wonder how long it will take the government to send the military to fight the militia?

These boys better hold their meetings on the church steps after services on Sunday. They better have a reporter tied to their belts. They better keep it squeaky clean. You can bet every third member is an agent or an informer.

[jeremiah]

I set this thread aside this morning 12-14, to read it in depth later. The Bush-bots have not made an appearance it seems(don't want to defend the indefensible), and I am amazed that the thread died. This is evidence of treason, in my book. Ifn Jethro Clinton had ignored the influx of illegals in the midst of terrorism, the replies would be well over 100, maybe closer to 500. Our country is dying, and few care enough about America, they are to busy thinking politics.

[SteveH]

In regards to government support for third-world country border patrol at the expense of domestic border patrol, please see a potential connected event described in

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/806945/posts

The general idea is that multinational corporations may be willing and able, through developed world governments, to put enough investment into third world infrastructure to support exploitation of local natural and labor resources, with a notion of eventually shifting operations away from regulation-burdened locales such as the US to those third world locales (current examples for which include Mexico, China, and Vietnam).

[SteveH]

The degree to which selling corporations act to protect their target market seems to me in large part dictated by the exigencies of the stock market and its attendant short term planning/investment horizon: maybe something on the order of 5 or so years at most, for most normal industries, and more often, a lot less than 5 years. So if current national policy is to reduce the cost of labor at any price (and this seems to be the case via my own unscientific observation), then it is only a matter of time before prices, and demand, follow. The market can't support both low wages *and* high prices of goods sold *indefinitely*, because sooner or later the workers/consumers won't earn enough to be able to buy enough.

The "sooner or later" refers to economic "elasticity", where (for example) housing prices remain artificially high due to fortuitious profit-taking in the stock market being re-invested in real estate (home upgrades, home additions, etc.) and causes a temporary resistance to falling prices in certain segments of the market (for example, housing) due to artificial constraints (for example, the mortage tax breaks built into the income tax structure at the behalf of the banking industry interests).

The disproportionate corporate influence in government is probably behind the disproportional government response to terrorism overall, i.e. the passage of a Homeland Security Act which actually contains ever-widening encroachments on individual civil liberties and Constitutionally guaranteed rights (in an attempt to promote safeguarding of corporate assets and the basic industrial infrastructure needed to support those assets), and which otherwise reads like a Christmas wish list of changes in the law for certain large corporate interests, such as the pharmaceutical industry.

Perhaps the current sweet spot in terms of careers is to be involved somehow in Pacific Rim sales (and even that is not a guarantee). However, sooner or later, the short term corporate idea of profit-taking heaven is, judging from the corporate walk, likely to lead us all towards some virtual location where Bangalore meets Belmont (with all that that implies).

Guys like Simcox putting fingers in the illegal immigration dike are involved in a noble effort but I suspect the decisions made in the corporate boardrooms already have doomed his efforts...

[RnMomof7]

Our country is dying, and few care enough about America, they are to busy thinking politics.

This is not a party issue but a class and power one..

[nicmarlo]

If they want Mexicans working for Americans on farms as laborers, then these people should be given work documents allowing them to remain at farm A or B or wherever for a limited period of time. The Ranchers must then become responsible for their whereabouts for the entire time period. They should be charged with civil/criminal penalties for avoiding the legal process of getting work papers and for any failure to maintain adequate "control" over their whereabouts. And if thefts/crimes are committed, they must, as well, assume some responsibility for these people. It would make the potential employer want to check Mexicans' criminal backgrounds, etc., prior to hiring. I dare say, they would be more discriminate about who they hire and where these people are. At the end of their work permit, they return to their homes: in Mexico; not be free to wander and "get lost" in America and then commit crimes upon Americans or receive benefits for which they are not entitled.

[nicmarlo]

immigration and labor and wages and citizen rights in general.

IMHO, I am not focusing on a small part of the problem. What I'm trying to say is, I recognize that farmers/ranchers want to employ people they can pay with cheaper wages. They are doing this, right now, illegally and with no accountability. People show up who have no working papers. This is encouraging illegals to come into the country, and American employers are not discouraged from this practice because they aren't "getting caught" or "being held accountable." If there is a process where they feel they, the Ranchers/Farmers, are getting want THEY want (cheaper labors/greater profits), they will cooperate with the need to go through proper channels to achieve their goals.

You can't make Americans accept the kind of wages the Ranchers/Farmers want to pay. And if the Ranchers/Farmers have been getting by with lower wages to illegals, they'd rather go that route than pay higher wages to Americans.

But Farmers/Ranchers must be forced to help with this problem: their alternative: no Mexicans to pick their berries, avacados, or whatever.

And if employers are required to keep track of the Mexicans in their employ, and are forced to hire people through the legal process, i.e., only those Mexicans who have proper work papers and who will only get them if they, the Mexican workers, promise to return to their country at the expiration of the work permit, if the employer understands that he/she/it is required to monitor the Mexican workers, at all times while in their employ, then American citizens will less likely be on the receiving end of criminal activity, of hospitals being used for free (but paid by U.S. taxpayers) by illegals, etc. I don't see how that does not fit into the bigger picture.

If everybody is feeling like their getting something out of this "new" situation, they will more likely than not see the benefit to actually complying with the new situation. Citizens are protected, Mexicans have jobs and don't have to hide, employers don't have to fear INS raids and losing trained employees.

[nicmarlo]

If the American people present a "plan" to their Representatives/Senators to help with a solution, they "the traitors" to whom you refer, may be forced to go along with it. The alternative is that we have more and more of the citizenry forming into militias along the border....this problem will not go away, IMO, any more by their ignoring this, and they know it...the people are getting, justifiably, angry over this mess. The "traitors" cannot continue to ignore what may end up becoming a mob of Americans at the borders....which I can, eventually, foresee happening. Emotions are escalating now.