It's a lot easier to have a spontaneous outburst of righteous indignation when it's organized, eh? But those brilliant tacticians probably should have included a couple of additional instructions: 1. Ditch the Mexican flags, and, 2) Try to sound as if you at least halfway like the nation whose gates you are crashing. Big, big backlash from this. The already substantial majority of Americans who think we should be much tougher on illegal immigration is just going to grow.
Comments
It SHOULD grow Leo... This is absurd and out of control...
There are several things we need to fix in America; unfortunately, BOTH The Republicans and Democrats are burying their heads in the sand and just trying to get re-elected. Neither The Reps or Dems are looking towards the future at all...
My kids and their kids will pay for the decisions our current politicans make...
We have several issues we need to address NOW:
1. Illegal immigration. We offered Amnesty in 1986 to 3.5 million illegal aliens. This was supposed to fix the problem. Now we have over 11 million illegal aliens and they cost us over 65 billion dollars per year in government services...
2. Unfunded government liabilities. According to several well respected conservative groups the unfunded liabilities of our government are ABOUT 71 TRILLION dollars. What this means is that we would have to have 71 TRILLION dollars invested and drawing interest to pay all of the CURRENT obligations that the government has promised to pay. Instead, we have a current national debt of 8.3 Trillion dollars and most local and State governments have their own piles of debt...
3. We need to restore The Constitution and we need to give power back to the fifty states. We need to eliminate MANY Federal programs. Some examples include FEMA, The Federal Deptartment of Education, and Amtrack...
Mike Sylvester
Eliminate FEMA?? And what -- leave disaster response to the states? It won't happen and all you have to do is look at the Katrina aftermath. When people see images on CNN (or even Fox) of fellow Americans in trouble, they're not going to say, "Gee, I sure hope they have a good state government there."
Oh Mike, I wish you would stop calling yourself a libertarian. You're giving a proud political label based on the best of America's values -- liberty, free minds and free markets -- an absolutely bad name.
The last thing a libertarian, big L or small, should ever be is against open borders. And one should also realize that as much of the problem of illegal immigration has to do with the ridiculous immigration laws, which were created originally to exclude Asians and then those who weren't White, Anglo-Saxon or Protestant -- examples of how laws are used to codify the bigotries of a period of time -- and has now become absolutely ridiculous. When it can take two decades for, say, a citizen to help his hard-working brother emigrate to this country from the Philippines or years for a biotech student from Japan to gain an H1-B visa to actually become a contributing member of American society, there can be no wonder why hard-working Mexicans, whose 89-percent labor force participation (and thus contributions to the nation's economy) in this country is far higher than either Whites or Blacks, just simply decide to cross the border instead of applying for their papers.
Considering that illegals aren't qualified for most government welfare programs -- only their kids would be if they are born as citizens or attend school -- that $65 billion number is a load of horse. That the underlying reason why there are any free-riders at all -- citizens having decided to offer government services such as Medicaid (whose costs are mostly driven by native senior citizens and the disabled, mind you) -- doesn't seem to register in your thoughts.
Please Mike, stop calling yourself a libertarian. It's insulting to the real ones.
RiShawn:
Of course I am a Libertarian! I have spoken with quite a few Indiana Libertarians and they are split on the immigration issue. Some are for illegal immigration and some are against it. There is not a consensus that I can find. I would GUESS that more Indiana Libertarians favor illegal immigration then think it is wrong; but, that is a GUESS.
I have discussed illegal immigration with several of the members of The Libertarian Party of Allen county as well. We have members on both sides of this issue. We are close to being evenly split.
I used to be a Republican (Until I figured out they had become a LARGER government Party.) When I was a Republican I did NOT agree with The Republican Party on everything; but, I agreed with them on enough items that I considered myself a Republican. I voted mostly for Republican candidates... I NEVER voted a straight ticket... I think for myself...
I switched to the Libertarian Party about a year and a half ago. That does NOT mean that I agree with The Libertarian Party on everything. It means I agree with the Libertarian Party on enough items that I consider myself a Libertarian.
I did not change all of my views to conform with the Libertarian Party. I think for myself and I make my own decisions. I think everyone should. America would be a better place if everyone thought for themselves and did not try to conform to a Political Party...
There are several issues I do not agree with The Libertarian Party on, here is a list:
1. Military policy at all (I believe we
should have the largest, most well
equipped military in the world and that
we should use our military when
needed...) I am a military veteran and
I am proud of it!
2. Foreign policy. I do NOT think we
can bury our heads in the sand...
3. Illegal immigration. I am in favor
of LEGAL IMMIGRATION. I am in favor of
INCREASING LEGAL IMMIGRATION. Amnesty is
100% wrong and I do not support it.
4. I am NOT in favor of legalizing all
drugs as many Libertarians are. I am in
favor of getting the Federal government
100% out of the drug issue. I think that
the fifty states should set their own
drug policies. That means that in
several states "weed" would be legal. I
Also agree with the Libertarians that the
war on drugs has 100% failed... I just
am not sure that legalizing everything is
the answer.
I think you are from Indianapolis RiShawn. It is too bad you do not live in Fort Wayne. If you lived in Fort Wayne you could come to some of our meetings and you could try to sway us to your point of view. Who knows, maybe you could change my mind... As I grow older and hopefully wiser I have changed my views on several items...
Mike Sylvester
Chairman of The Libertarian Party of Allen County
One more thing ... I like Amtrak. I just wish we subsidized rail travel as much as we dump into air travel. Or cut them both out completely.
Libertarians have been carefully re-examining their position on open borders for some time, because of the illegal immigration issue, and due to post-9/11 terrorism concerns.
In my opinion, open borders is a foolish proposition for a Libertarian to take so long as there are taxpayer funded services that illegals can take advantage of, such as health care. (My wife is a Certified Nurse Midwife. She delivers babies of illegal immigrants on virtually every shift at the Indianapolis hospital that employs her. They are paid for by Medicare.) Most Libertarians are in favor of scaling back social services for proper citizens, so why on earth would they be in favor of encouraging non-citizens to take advantage of them?
Take the dogmatic blinders off and live in the real world for a moment. Legal immigration is wonderful and should be encouraged. Illegal immigration needs to be halted immediately.
Sorry Kole, but if you actually look at the Medicaid rolls here in Indiana, illegals only make up 1 percent of enrollment -- and that is only because they can only get services if they are expecting or actually have children who are born here. Most of the costs for Medicaid, however, are driven neither by undocumented workers nor by native mothers and children, but as pointed out by the Kaiser Foundation, by elderly and the disabled which account for 75 percent of expenses.
If you then look at estimates from Pew Hispanic Center illegal immigration expert Jeffrey Passel's (the dean of all demographers on studying illegal immigration) on Indiana, the number of undocumented immigrants -- a group that includes not just Mexicans and other Latin emigres crossing the border, but tourists and students who came here legally and overstayed their visas -- they make up just 1 percent of the state's entire population; nationally it's likely they make up 5 percent of the national population. They likely make up 5 percent of the nation's workforce and a far smaller share of the workforce in Indiana. Essentially the concerns over illegal immigration in terms of overwhelming the nation and state are ridiculous.
The problem doesn't lie with undocumented immigration, but the immigration system itself. Remember that back in 1882, when the first immigration laws were created, it was only done so in order to exclude Chinese and other Asians (the Chinese Exclusion Act) out of fear that somehow the Chinese were taking American jobs. The same fear -- along with pure bigotry -- was why the nation's systems of quotas were established by 1921.
This system has led to perverse incentives for those who want to come to this country and fill the unskilled -- and low-paying -- positions most Americans won't fill. Because they neither fit into the category of 'immediate relatives,' migrant workers or professionals, they cannot get in legally. Even if they qualified, the limited quotas means that, for example, a brother of an American who lived in the Philipinnes must wait two decades before getting permanent resident status.
Perhaps you should actually do some research and get the facts as I have. Anectdotes, Kole, don't substitute for them.
"Badges!? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!!"
Illegals on Medicaid rolls being "only" 1% of the Medicaid burden merely reveals how great that burden is, and does nothing to eliminate the prinicple that non-citizens should not be eligible to partake in citizen-funded social services.
Again- More legal immigration, no illegal immigration.