Tancredo is an idiot.

Leaving aside the immigration issue, Tancredo's recent foray into the fever swamps of the idiot right was in full display when he opined that we may need to "blow up" Mecca & Medina, possibly with nukes.

He isn't a serious human being, and the people in his district aren't serious if they return him. This guy is heading toward B1 Bob land, and the sooner the reasonable right sends him there the better.

Good GOD, the fools this poor party has to suffer!!

Absolutely correct Bruno. We'll only need conventional weapons.

Bruno - just as McCain's standing is boosted by a fawning MSM, Tancredo's standing is boosted by the anti-immigration types at NRO etc. Pushing Tancredo out of the party makes sense but won't be pretty.

I'm a right wing nut, Viet Nam vet crazy killer/idiot, gun owning wacko, who thinks illegal immigration should be stopped immediately. I also have some very good friends that are as liberal as you can get, who feel the same way, and maybe are even more adamant about the issue than I am. I can hardly wait until Saint Hillary speaks out on the issue.

By the way, how come every time I post a comment, I get this email:

"This is the Postfix program at host smtp05.safesecureweb.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The Postfix program

: host c2mailmx.mailcentro.com[207.183.238.22]
said: 550 5.7.1 Mail from 209.41.179.8 refused by mailcentro dnsbl. To
resolve this problem please contact access@access.emailcentro.com (in reply
to MAIL FROM command)

Mexico Retaliates for Border Wall Plan

"We learned to believe in the United States. We have a binational life," he said of Zacatecas, a state that has been sending migrants north for more than a century. "It isn't just a feeling of rejection. It's against what we see as part of our life, our culture, our territory."
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/20/D8EK6GGO9.html

That just about says it all. Let's all blame Tom for having the bad taste to point out the obvious.

AllenS,

Conservatives can disagree on immigration. They can even take both sides, and be correct.

I'm for a higher penalty and much stricter enforcement, but Bush is 100% correct that we need to expand legal guest worker immigration.

It is politically and economically important.
__

My view on Tancredo stands - 100% bonehead.

I'm with Allen and Bruno. How's that for the third way?

I also get the same messages as Allen OJ.

It's just good to see that someone is actually on the side of the American people on this issue. I'd be more willing to discuss an expanded guest worker plan AFTER the border is secured and a better immigration system is devised.

Up the ante from Europe, I'm sure we could get a few who want to leave.

A few bombs and some pig parts should do it.

We could also parachute crosses, Stars of David, buddhas and some Indian gods into the mix, that's for a start.

I mean other Indian gods besides buddha.

The GOP is ripe for destruction. It does
not serve its constituency.

J.H.

I think you have it backwards. "Their Constitutency" is exactly what parties serve.

If you are no longer in that group, you must either switch parties, take back "your party" or form a new one.

The most obvious or easy answer is still to "take back", as in getting active, working for candidates, and walking precints.

If you don't have the faith in your own actions, then it is obvious that your faith in "Tancredo-ism", the Constitution Party, and other such ideas won't get you far.

J.H.: The only purpose of a political party is to elect politicians. If a position gains more votes than it loses, that position will soon be adopted. That's why neither party has ever been anti-immigration.

What are the multiculturalist Republicans who favor open borders going to do, vote for Democrats?

Win the nominations--nativists will run as third party.

Odd that it dominates our politics so completely.

If in the middle of a war the Republicans keep putting up George Bushes, more or less literally, and the Democrats keep putting up John Kerries, I hope figuratively, who are the nativists going to vote for?

AllenS -

You get that email because at some point you disagreed with oj's belief that islam will somehow morph into a sane and saving religion.

I get that message all the time because I called islam (in a comment here) what it is - a dead-end death cult...

At some point a significant number of the 'nativists' (more accurately the majority of Americans who support sensible restrictions on immigration) will stay home unless their concerns are recognized. At that point the pro-immigration minority will have to choose between open borders and allowing a Democrat to be elected.

Stay home and say hello to President Rodham.

M., Genecis,

Are we on double secret probation?

It's the choice the pro-immigrationists are going to have to make erp: do they want open borders so badly they will create a situation allowing Hillary Clinton to be elected, or do they compromise their minority views on immigration for the good of the Republican party.

The irony is that Hillary can, without losing her constituency run to the Right of Republicans on immigration. The unions and blacks will support her with enthusiasm and I think Hispanics will stay on board.

Both parties are influenced by constituencies that benefit greatly from the slave labor of those who pass over the border of Mexico (and are not necessary Mexican). One of the many ways that the GOP sells out at the expense of its hardworking supporters.

Grog,

Read your post again. You start out: "Both parties..." Then your second sentence: "One of the many ways the GOP sells out ..." Shouldn't the last sentence read, "One of the many ways both parties sell out..."??????

I'll agree with the first sentence.

Geez, Grog, you mean those millions of Hispanics trying desperately to get into the States are really slaves-in-waiting who need to be saved by the nativist left? The word hasn't got back to their home countries yet?

Talk about false consciousness.

Carter: If anti-immigrationism were the majority view, it would win elections.

Oh, and we shouldn't just blithely assume that anti-immigrationism is more present on the right than on the left. The left's agenda can't work if immigration is easy.

The interesting thing is that the nativist wing of the GOP fits better in the Democratic party--it, like they, is more isolationist and protectionist, while Labor and blacks both resent Latino immigrants.

Politics are more complex than that David. Take affirmative action, with which the immigration debate has much in common. The Republican party in Washington State never opposed affirmative action out of fear of being labelled racist by the media and because of the influence of corporate money. When the issue was finally put to the voters in the form of an inititive in 1998 it passed with 58% of the vote - this in a state that last went Republican in a Presidential election in 1984.

And mass immigration fits in perfectly with the Left's anti-Western multiculuralist agenda. What's perplexing is why people who profess to be conservatives can support it. Other than individual greed, I suspect it's a form of compenstation for racial guilt.

Rather few of us have ever benefited from AA, but all from mass immigration.

The Left will oppose immigration because it's bringing in Christians, Unions because it brings cheap workers, blacks because it brings rivals for urban power, and nativists because of ethnicity.

Businesses and the religious will be its chief supports and they are the GOP.

Most Americans do not benefit from mass immigration and I'm not sure how you've missed it but the Left doesn't oppose immigration, and niether do unions anymore:

http://www.vdare.com/pb/afl-cio.htm

Most Americans do not benefit from mass immigration...

They do if they like fresh produce and new construction.

Also, most Americans are descended from mass immigration, and ALL are descended from migrants.

Anyone with enough intestinal fortitude to actually make a break from what they're familiar with, and go to live in a strange place, where they don't even speak the language, is exactly the type of person that we want in America.

It's how the West was Won.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 28, 2005 3:46 AM

Carter: If we eliminated, on the one hand, all the costs associated with immigrants and their descendents and, on the other hand, all that they create, I'm pretty sure that GDP would go down. To, um, zero.

You got my point reversed: the left doesn't like mass immigration. You can't run a welfare state while allowing mass immigration.

Finally, the idea that anti-immigrationists would stay home and allow the election of Democrats puts the lie to the idea that any part of anti-immigrationism is due to a concern about national security. So, what's left?

Michael: I don't believe the costs imposed by low skill immigrants outweigh the economic benefits of less expensive produce and construction labor. And neither do economists. If cheaper construction is so important to you remove the regulations that make it more expensive to hire Americans than ilegals.

David: What a silly argument. By the exact same logic, because in the cave man days if people hadn't had sex out of wedlock we wouldn't be here either. So anyone opposed to sex outside of marriage now is advocting the extinction of the human race.

"You can't run a welfare state while allowing mass immigration."

So we've eleminated our welfare state? I must have missed that. And the Left does favor mass immigration. That's a fact. You might want to try and figure out why. (hint: it's in part because you can't have a welfare state without clients).

Indeed, it's the social cost of secular white natives that are devastating. The benefits of religious Latino immigrants are overwhelming.

So overwhelming none of you can name any benefits other than cheap lettuce. I don't think you actually know how religious they are, either. Many survey's suggest that there is little difference between white and hispanic church attendance:

http://www.barna.org/FlexPage.aspx?Page=BarnaUpdate&BarnaUpdateID=169

Carter:

To the contrary, we keep naming the chief benefit of mass immigration: the new Americans. Just because you lot hate them doesn't mean we haven't explained.

Who says they are Americans? And who says I hate them? I not the one afraid to live near them.

Some of the "benefits" that don't get mentioned:

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/050213_mapping.htm

Tradition. Immigrants become Americans. Americans hate immigrants for reasons of ethnicity. It's been going on for a few hundred years.

I would have more confidence that modern immigrants were becoming Americans if any of the pro-immigrationists were willing to promote assimilation by living next door to and sending their children to school with them. As to the argument "we had immigration in the past and it worked out OK" note we had an immigration lull between 1920 and 1965. So by all means, let's use the past as a guide and have another immigration lull to ensure the immigrants here assimilate.

No, you wouldn't. You'd oppose them regardless. It's ever and always the same.

Carter:

Your claim that "economists" support your position curiously lacks mention that many economists support my position - so it's a wash.

As for society as a whole, if the costs of illegal immigration were noticeably high, then there would be enough popular support for those who believe as you do to actually do something meaningful about it.

Therefore, whether immigrants are a net benefit to society or a net cost, it's a small effect either way - except for in the southern border states, where for instance it's clearly a net cost to California, and a net gain for Arizona.

Also, most of the costs come from the fact that most immigrants are ILLEGAL.

If we allow them to come legally, costs decrease and benefits rise, and my position becomes unassailably correct.

Posted by: Michael Herdegen at December 28, 2005 11:17 PM