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To: yarddog

The least you could do is post an Opus ;)

Seriesly, I'm getting to be more and more a border-bot as each day goes by, but I am not very proud of my political allies on this issue. FR has ALWAYS purged "pitchforkers" - they don't want to become a right-leaning version of DU (angry and fringe). One trick many border bots have been using in this banning squabble, you just employed:

"who instantly show up on any immigration thread and start attacking the more conservative posters"

"Conservative" covers a lot of ground, yet in this context, you have narrowed it to someone who is hawkish on the border. I've seen this kind of behavior in social conservatives, tax hawks, deficit hawks, libertarians, judicial watchers, etc. Each group has members that deine conservatism as their view on their "issue".

Conservatism is much bigger than that. I am a social conservative, 100% for the WOT and Iraq, a little squishy on taxation/regulation, and am in favor of a wall, a guest worker program (later - and applications have to be made in the country of origin), and NO path to citizenship for illegals - at all. Yet many here, from many camps, tell me I am not "conservative".

Just don't like the word game. "Conservative" is NOT defined as "close the borders and deport all illegals". That may be a subset (although I don't agree), but it is not THE definition.


3,504 posted on 05/19/2006 9:35:17 AM PDT by Warren_Piece (Smart is easy. Good is hard.)
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To: Warren_Piece
I am a social conservative, 100% for the WOT and Iraq, a little squishy on taxation/regulation, and am in favor of a wall, a guest worker program (later - and applications have to be made in the country of origin), and NO path to citizenship for illegals - at all. Yet many here, from many camps, tell me I am not "conservative".

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.

3,505 posted on 05/19/2006 9:45:42 AM PDT by dirtboy (An illegal immigrant says my tagline used to be part of Mexico)
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