t bob, My thoughts & more

Thanks to the Reagan administration's ineffective immigration policy America now has a major immigration problem, one for which there is no win-win solution.

The arguments supporting illegal immigration/immigrants are at best equivocal and at worst self serving for the illegal immigrants, the Bush administration and the business community which exploits them.

The arguments against illegal immigration/immigrants are sound, namely that illegal immigration is just that, it is ILLEGAL. If America ceases to be a country of laws it is most certainly doomed.

That is exactly what terrifies me about the Bush/Repubs who are constantly breaking one law after another and constantly lying to the American people. The Bush/Repubs are interested in only two things wealth and political power and care not for America and American democracy. The Bush/Repub administration is nothing but a group of law breakers. The Nixon government was bad. The Bush government is way beyond bad, it is destructive to America and the immigration situation is just going to add more weight to an already terribly overburdened America and American democracy.

The fundamentalist Catholic Church, my church, is again invading American politics when it supports illegal immigration/immigrants. That Catholic cardinal in Los Angeles that encouraged people to ignore the laws of America is another graphic example of the Catholic Church violating American laws and destroying the fabric of our American society.

The mayor of Los Angeles also endorses the breaking of American laws. When he was running for mayor I liked some of his qualifications but was very afraid that he would do just what he has done, encourage the breaking of American laws. He has just proven what everyone is afraid of namely the continued expansion of lawlessness in America. That mayor is placing his nationality/heritage ahead of America and our desire and need for a lawful society. He should be a Bushie and a Repub because they place themselves and their wants/desires ahead of America.

The fabric of our America is being destroyed by the Bush/Repubs and illegal immigration/ immigrants just adds another huge millstone around the neck of our society and this huge weight will drag us down to destruction.

NOW, having said all that, I am not saying that all immigration is destructive to America, I am saying that ILLEGAL immigration is a very serious and potentially destructive risk to America, do we really want to take that risk. I for one do not, I would rather have tight immigration laws which we can adjust as needed in the future.

Congress is, in the heat of fear for American security and hispanic/Catholic votes, rushing to a one congressional act solution to this immense problem. They call it "A Comprehensive Reform Bill". Bush/Repubs want security and so do I, and so do all Americans. A wall will do that as has been proved in Israel. Also the wall in San Diego has been very sucessful in greatly reducing illegal immigration at that location so walls do work and they work very well. So you Bushie/Repubs lets just do that and build a wall. It is most unfortunate that there has to be walls anywhere in the world but at this time they are necessary.

Someday when we can rid ourselves of Bushie Repubs and all their hate, fear and war mongering plus all their terribly divisive politics of hate toward Americans who do not think exactly as they do then this America of hate which results in a world of hate will cease and the walls can be taken down allowing people to move to wherever the jobs require them to be, as seems to be taking place successfully in Ireland.

Congress could choose a wiser course of action rather than rushing to a one act solution which it calls a 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill'. Instead Congress should break this problem down into a two part solution. The first part should be to construct a wall along our entire southern border since that is the most immediately problematic border. If the wall needs to be 100 ft. high and 100 ft. deep and loaded with electronic sensors and guard towers than that is what should be constructed. While this is being constructed all legal americans can calm down and try to be more rational about enacting the second part of the legislation, to control the illegal immigration problem/mess for now and for the future. The second part of the legislative process must address many issues/scenarios/situations and therefore is far more complex than just erecting a wall and therefore it requires much more time and deliberation.

Illegal immigrants who have a history of crimes should be deported immediately and that should be part of the second phase of immigration legislation. Mexico and other countries south of our border have strict laws governing illegal immigration. They have dangerous prisons and a dangerous police and military to handle illegal immigrants. Travelers have fears about prisons, police and the military in hispanic countries as do their own citizens. If one breaks the laws in these countries one has to be willing to pay the price and it is far more severe than here in America. American laws regarding illegals and crimes committed by illegals are far too lenient.

Another issue to be considered for new legislation is that babies born of illegal immigrant women should not be granted american citizenship as the civilized world takes the position that the baby belongs to the mother and as such is of the mothers heritage, and that is as it should be. If a male illegal immigrant has a baby with a woman who is an American citizen the baby should stay with the mother here in America and vice versa.

There should be some kind of work visa/permit with strict controls and enforcement and no automatic path to citizenship, especially when there are many who seek citizenship by following lawful methods. Do we Americans want to reward law breakers, that is truly the question.

American employers are also law breakers and must be held responsible for whomever they hire. They must not be allowed to exploit legal immigrant workers who have a legal temporary work permit and therefore should be paid normal wages and benefits. Probably all immigrant workers should belong to a union which can see that this does not occur. Legal temporary immigrant workers with temporary worker permits should have to pay some kind of taxes because they use social, medical, welfare, and benefit by all other community services such as police and fire. Again it should go without saying that there should be no such thing as illegal immigrants.

Illegal immigrants should not be rewarded in any way for being ILLEGAL. There are immigrants who are here legally or want to come here legally and they wait their turn and go through the immigration process legally. It is they who should be rewarded with a path to legal citizenship.

Congress and the American people must NEVER FORGET that their are poor Americans, born here, who are almost completely neglected by the american system, these include inner city, applachian and rural Americans. WHEN is our government ever going to begin caring for these Americans. When they are well on their way to being cared for then we Americans can seek out others to care for.

I want to see the Bush/Repubs care for poor starving American families and children before spending scarce taxpayer dollars to subsidize other countries, wealthy Americans or give even more welfare to American corporations such as the oil companies or the health care industry ala Sen. Frist and family. Why should the American taxpayer constantly SUBSIDIZE big corporations and wealthy americans(with a small a) . When is that going to STOP. When all Americans have health care from the federal government then our corporations will not have to bear this burden alone, they can become more competitive and in turn create more jobs for AMERICANS. Possibly if we do a better job of supporting our medium and small businesses by spending far less on the military/defense industry and seriously reduce our debt with it's debt service costs all corporations and American wage earners will be better off.

Don't tell me these are separate issues because they are not, they are all inter-related. Economics is economics--- it's all inter-related. Government debt in America is absolutely horrendous. It THREATENS every aspect of our national security/insecurity and TERRORIZES all Americans. Why do 'we the people' and we the taxpayer have to experience terrorism from our very own government and our big businesses. If we cannot take care of ourselves how can we take care of others. If we cannot and do not take care of ourselves and our own economics then we are doomed to become a second rate country and second rate economy like Russia and China(which won't be second rate for very long). When the Chinese economy surpasses ours they will then have the ability to defeat America by doing what America did to defeat Russia which is to simply outspend us/them. That may not make sense so. . . America defeated Russia by not going to war and most importantly by simply outspending them and thus turning their economy into a shambles whereby they could no longer support their huge military/ cold war budget. China can and will defeat America the very same way. They don't really have to go to war with us, they will just break our economy and reduce it to a shambles. The Bushie Repubs will help them do exactly that by constantly increasing our military budget. For those red state Bushie Repub voters who don't think for themselves let me apprise you of the fact that our military/defense/war making budget is greater than that of all the other countries of the world put together. I find that COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. The last three Repub admins. have constantly increased spending despite what they claim. Don't listen to their bullshit words instead watch what they DO. Reagan, Bush I and most especially Bush II and his blind, lockstep, knee jerk spend, spend, spend Republicans have decimated our economy. Do not listen to their GDP bullshit spin rhetoric.

The Bushie Repubs hate the UN because it prevents them from their imperialistic hegemony. But if America was an actively participating member and we paid our UN dues(and threw Bolton out) the UN would be much stronger so we Americans would not have to carry the entire budget for defending the entire world. The world defense budget would be paid for by all the members of the UN. And don't tell me I am against our military or the defense of America. The world defense needs should/must be born by all the countries in the UN. Only certain specific American corporations benefit by our monstrously huge defense budget. If the American, British and Dutch oil companies want to overthrow some democratically elected central or south american governments in order to steal their oil/gas/water let them pay for it. They should not be allowed to use our government, our treasury, our taxpayers, our troops, our military, our CIA for their criminal acts. But of course the UN may not allow them to do that so they get our government to do it for them, at no cost to them, and under the guise of the war against terrorism, while Osama keeps wandering around in Pakistan. But that is okay with the Bushie Repubs because they don't really want to catch him otherwise they would have done exactly that when he was wandering around out in the open in Afghanistan where they sent a very small force after him that was so small it was doomed to fail, which it did. So much for the Bushie, Repub, Rove claim to defend American security. They let terrorism happen on American soil and they WILL let it happen again. The NSA was monitoring Osama long before 9/11. They used terrorism once to intimidate Americans into voting for them in 2004 and they will use it once again to keep their stranglehold/domination/control over American politics and government. How do I know, they, the Bushie,Rove Repubs came right out and said so; loudly and clearly.

I say the above, and I'm not even a Democrat, not since Vietnam.
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Speaking of Vietnam, we should remember that Ho Chi Minh asked our government to protect them from the French and Eisenhower refused to intervene in any way on their behalf. And I still like Ike, but what was he thinking and why didn't he get the UN involved in investigating that situation, was it the oil companies that once again interfered with American foreign policy or was it American Big Business or was it American rubber companies who were highly involved in southeast asia. Had Ike done something the Vietnam war may never have occurred. Our government knows why Ike did nothing, the Repubs certainly know, the CIA most certainly knows, some American corporations know, but the American people DO NOT KNOW. The American people NEVER KNOW.
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Congress must reduce aid, by at least 20%(immediately and then 5% per year from then on), to other countries so we can take care of America, first. Most of that aid goes to the wealthy in other countries and little gets to the people and our government has always been fully aware of that fact. That is why our government supports the wealthy in other countries and not the poor because the wealthy control the government in those countries just as the wealthy do in America. The American people must keep that thought in the fore front of their minds and be constanly aware of it so we as citizens and taxpayers can vote appropriately despite what our government wants. In other words, 'we the people' must take back our government from those who seek to do us harm while enriching themselves. 'We the people' must take back our government from the wealthy and the big corporatocracy.

Why is it that 'we the people' who pay for everything end up knowing nothing about what our government is doing and how it is spending our money???

The neocons and other secret and semi secret groups like the Council On Foreign Relations take heed---

You may not be able to keep 'we the people' in the dark forever. The Bush, Rove, Repub over-reaching is getting so glaring that you all may not be able to keep it hidden forever.