Can You Hear Me Now?

If you're starving and somebody throw you a cracker, you gonna be like this:
"Goddamn, that's the best cracker I ever ate in my life! That ain't no regular cracker, was it? What was that, a Saltine? Goddamn, that was delicious! That wasn't no Saltine. That was...That was a Ritz! That wasn't a Ritz? God, that was the best cracker I ever ate in my life! Can I have another one, please? Please, one more."

Then you get married, because you think you've found the bomb. Have the same crackers every day for a year. And you roll over one day and be like: "Hey, I just got some regular old crackers."

--Eddie Murphy, "Raw"

Eddie Murphy used to do a bit about crackers to illustrate the profound risks of delayed gratification. Anticipation can temporarily cloud one's judgment making even staples seem extravagant. Mundane necessities and simple pleasures--food, say, or intimacy--are rendered exquisite by the simple fact of their temporary absence. With all worldly pleasures this effect is fleeting. Familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt or at least diminishes our sense of awe and wonder. We quickly forget the anguish of denial and become complacent and comfortable with our gains.

So it has been with the Republicans--and with us. In 1994, after being consigned to the minority for 40 years, they figured out the recipe with the Contract with America and the Gingrich Revolution. Accordingly, Americans hungry for a new direction, limited government and a message of personal responsibility and the accompanying prosperity drank it up. It was a marriage made in heaven. These guys were talking about cutting spending, balancing budgets, increasing private productivity. Not since the new deal had we really tasted crackers this fresh. The Republican party reveled in the attention and the opportunity to effect meaningful change. After so many years in the minority, they'd earned the opportunity to prove their ideas. Life was good--no, great!

Fast forward 12 short years. Republicans who campaigned on balanced budgets and term limits are now lying sideways in the public trough. With control of two branches of government and increased leverage in the third, the great life has become too easy. The revolution has stalled.

To be sure, some seismic historical movements have occurred. Recession, an attack in the homeland, the momentary collapse of the stock market provide moments of astonishing leadership and solidarity. Ruthless regimes are toppled. America wounded roars. The world is briefly united behind her.

But an opposition party fresh out of ideas for all of the last 35 years provides little more than comic relief--certainly no competition or incentive to sharpen the saw. The Republican leadership's attitude of entitlement grows daily--the principles which drove them into office have long since been abandoned in favor of profligate spending and government expansion under the guise of "compassionate conservatism". The will of the people, whose support and praise were at once magical and musical a decade before is drowned out by the instinct for political self-preservation. The party of family values becomes more closely associated with graft and sleaze. Familiarity breeds contempt. Contempt for the people. Contempt for the opposition. Contempt for the ideas and promises that delivered them from minority status.

It turns out, contempt is a two-way street. It's not as if you weren't warned. Your base and the crucial moderate swing voters positively shouted for years: Do something to turn it around! Stop the southern invasion! We'll give you whatever you need to win the war, but you must win! We've already disciplined the democrats, the unions, the billionaires, the church. Beware and police yourselves! It's May, Mr. President. We've been at this a while and we're tired of simply staying the course. We want more than commitment at the microphone. Are you listening? Can you hear us? Eighteen months to go, but you're not up for reelection.

It's September and New Orleans is under water. Yes, the governor and the mayor are incompetent. You knew that two weeks ago. But you're the President and Michael Brown has no plan either. 1800 people are dead, rioting resembles the aftermath of victory in Baghdad, but it's here at home. Why aren't you doing anything? Can't you hear us?

Those men at the border... They're not vigilantes, they're Americans and they're doing your job! We want you to protect us, not offer amnesty and encouragement to criminals. It's May and your approval rating is at 38%. The invaders are marching in LA under foreign colors. It's not acceptable! Can you hear us yet?

School's out! It's June. Gas is $3.35 per gallon in California. Do you know how many times we're reminded of this fact as we drive up the PCH? What are you doing about it? Complaining about minority opposition isn't making much difference. Oh yeah... About DeLay and Abramoff and DeWine. We're not stupid. Can't you talk to these guys or at least condemn the actions when they become public? Can you hear us now? 36%

August. Please stop calling me to ask for money. I gave you money. You gave me no Osama, no resolution in Iraq, but you did support the Senate omnibus handout to Vincente Fox. You've done nothing but let me down. Please ask Ken Mehlman and your wife to stop emailing me at work, too. It's creepy. 34%

October. Glad to hear you're heartened by the surge to 39%. 2 years of generals telling us off the record and republicans on the record that we need more resources in Iraq. Osama's still making videos despite assurances this time last year that he was probably dead. Your own party doesn't want to campaign with you. Are you listening?

November 7. Pearl Harbor day 1 month early. Contempt is palpable. The people are tired of your crackers. A lot of crackers are losing really nice day jobs. Tomorrow Don Rumsfeld will resign. If it's ok tomorrow, why not 60 days ago? We're pissed Mr. President! We've had enough, Mr. Speaker! The good news is, it's not 1974. You're only down a dozen and a half seats, instead of 145. You have 2 years. You won't get much done. No more strict constructionist nominations for you. Tax cuts? Gone. Social Security Reform? We never believed you anyway.

You have 23 months and 29 days to do nothing but listen--very carefully.

We were your base, cracker. Can you hear us now?

DT

Do svidaniya, Mrs. Politkovskaya

I've recently returned from business in Paris.

You see, I love visiting Paris and especially just getting lost in the old bits of town. The insane disrespect for right angles, the narrow streets and the stacked buildings remind me a bit of Boston, only 800 years older still.

One thing certain is that, if you must be alert on Monday morning, you'd best not fly across the pond on Sunday. So it was that I arrived Saturday morning, having slept some on the flight and was well enough rested to venture out Sunday for Mass at Le Cathedral de Notre Dame de Paris. It's a nice change from the services I attend maybe monthly at a less rigorous Parish in North Carolina. At least I am fearless in Paris that the assertion, "The Body of Christ" may be answered with "Dude! Word!" as has been reported in Chapel Hill.

Inside Notre Dame is very old and dark and gray and really, really tall. When mass has ended, once the money's been collected and congregation begins to exit the Maestro pulls most of the stops out on 7800 pipes and punctuates the 1/8th mile walk to the door with organ blasts so profoundly spiritual and just plain loud they remind me most of front row, center at a Blue Oyster Cult show somewhere in upstate New York sometime last century.

But I digress... The first relevant bit of the trip was actually on my way in to the cathedral, or rather just in the front of the church, to the right, where there's this amazing statue of Charlemagne. I've always liked this monument. He's up on his horse, with a couple of pike-wielding footsoldiers at either side. If the pikemen are life-size at about 5 feet tall, then Charlie is represented as having been about 11 feet and 600 pounds of Holy Roman Dynamite with the facial hair that inspired ZZ-Top. Usually, the base of the monument is mobbed with pigeons and resting tourists. This sunday, the pigeons were there, but the tourists on the step around the monument were replaced with a mess of posters, candles and flowers--the aftermath, I guessed, of a midnight candle vigil.

So, the posters told the story pretty well. They were pictures of Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist recently assassinated in Moscow, presumably because of her outspoken objection to some of the thuggish activities of the Russian Military and "Advisors" in Chechnya and to President Putin.

Now, I don't live in a cave (it's more of a dank, dark basement with no windows and a killer broadband connection). I'd heard of Mrs. Politkovskaya in some reports I'd trolled off Drudge or RealClear. I knew about her murder and a series of other contract killings of journalists and dissidents that have tended to become commonplace in free Russia lately. It's just that it was still kind of a footnote for me. It was Russia and their economic and political problems. It seemed to me odd that apparently so many people had been moved to demonstrate on the steps of Notre Dame in Paris about a murder 3000 miles away. But I was alone at the time, so I filed it.

A few days later I met a friend for lunch at the base of the Arc de Triomphe. Now at the base of the Arch there's a memorial with an Eternal Flame and there are always lots of Red and White Flower Arrangements placed by government. The gendarme patrolling the arch never seem to be the jovial sort and they carry impressive machine guns, so as you'd expect there aren't many demonstration posters lying about. Still--enough reminder that I commented to my friend about the odd little demonstration I'd discovered on Sunday. My friend has a clever way of pointing out that I am the ultimate self-obsessed American with a myopic worldview without actually saying the words. "Of course! Anna Politkovskaya has become a hero to all Europe and the demonstrations are meant to be taking place all over the world." Ouch. Embecile! I need a little steak tartare to put on that new shiner. Time to do a little research...

Here's what we knew: the late 80's saw Perestroika became Katastroyka and Boris Yeltsin became the first Russian President after Gorbachev wound down the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin immediately reinvested much of the Russian treasury into alcohol and prostitution for his personal consumption. Former KGB official and the latest in a series of short-lived prime ministers, Vladimir Putin inherited the job upon Yeltzin's quite sudden resignation from office. During the 90's, while the US foreign policy could be best described as "Trust but mollify", Putin changed the character of Russian Democracy, imposing strict limitations on, for instance, the Press and the Chechens.


During this same period, Ms. Politkovskaya was solidifying her reputation as an anti-government journalist corresponding from 2 Chechen conflicts and commenting extensively on the atrocities in Chechnya and the abuses of power back home in Moscow. So, to your abusive government in the hands of former Communist loyalists and apologists, add a big mouth reporter with a knack for popular criticism. Fold in two measures of an economy so bad that contract killers commonly work for the price of a decent cell phone in Western Europe and it's not hard to see how life can be hard on an uppity journalist.

So, there's been a handful of journalists in Russia that have criticized the government and subsequently been on the losing end of a series of well publicized contract killings. Mrs. Politkovskaya has been the latest and perhaps bravest. She was clearly aware of the attention she received. A number of her colleagues had been perforated over the past several years. Still, she dug in for details and she wrote. They threatened her and she wrote. They blacklisted her and she wrote more. They poisoned her and she kept writing. In August, she foretold her own murder.

She was reportedly working on an investigation of Government torture in Chechnya and was ready to name names. Somebody followed her home from the supermarket and shot her at close range in the chest. This was to send a message. It hurts a lot and isn't instantly fatal. I suspect while she lay there knowing what was happening, the killer walked up and shot her in the head. Mr. Putin has sworn to spare no effort in tracking down the real killer. The killing occurred on October 7, Mr. Putin's birthday.

The demonstrations began on October 8. From her wikipedia entry:

On 8 October, 2006, hundreds rallied in downtown Moscow to protest the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and the recent crackdown on ethnic Georgians.[33] The demonstration was described by the Moscow-based liberal Echo of Moscow radio station as "the largest protest rally of the opposition recently held in Russia."[34]

During the day following information about Politkovskaya's death, there was a demonstration and memorial consisting of 500 people in Moscow, as well as 300 people gathering in St. Petersburg.

A day after the murder more than one thousand people gathered at the Russian embassy in Helsinki, Finland to pay their respects to Politkovskaya (according to Helsingin Sanomat article published on 22.Octoberr, there were about 3000 people). The demonstration was silent, with people holding candles. Two of Politkovskaya's books have been published in Finland as translated editions.[35]

On 10 October, 2,000 demonstrators called Putin a "murderer" during his visit to Dresden, Germany.[36][37][38]

The bits of her writing that I was able to find on the web are fascinating. She was not afraid to mix it up with the big dogs. She calls out Mr. Putin. She identifies officers in charge of war crimes and atrocities by name. It's easy to see why some folks would probably like to have her silenced. It's probably not too hard to narrow down the list of folks who might have called the shots on this one. Their names are in her articles.

It's quite obvious that she was passionate about her work, that she understood the impact she had in life (perhaps not the explosive impact of her death) and that she remained stoic about the consequences:

"My life can be difficult; more often, humiliating. I am not, after all, that young at 47 to keep encountering rejection and having my own pariah status rubbed in my face. But I can live with it."

Do svidaniya, Mrs. Politkovskaya. God keep you. And now that you've left the race, may there always be men and women courageous enough to carry the baton.

Anna Stepanovna Politkovskaya
1958 - 2006
RIP

DT

Who's Country?

Pat Buchanan's new book makes for interesting reading. I'm afraid Mr. Buchanan doesn't do much to persuade--his rhetoric occasionally resembles that of the Klan resurgence or the uglier side of John Birch Society. I'm not so much a protectionist or a White Pride advocate as I am simply concerned about the direction we take when we allow a nation's worth of aliens to exert the sort of political pressure I saw in LA in May.

His historical account is very good reading and, I think, well researched and easily verified. That attrocities were committed by both sides in the Mexica American War is not debatable. That Aztlan never existed is also almost certain. Buchanan's assertion that there were never more than a few thousand Spanish speaking Mexicans in all of California, that their presence never extended to the northern half of the state was new information for me.

In any case, I do suffer from Nationalistic pride (call it patriotism) and I have the sense that, were all of that land to have remained in Mexican hands, it would have been as unproductive as has been the rest of Mexico--to this day a third world nation. California has it's problems, but reextending Mexican rule there will solve none of them.

Ditto Texas. Ditto New Mexico. Ditto Old Mexico, for that matter.

Today Vincente Fox spoke out against the fence. Compared it to the Berlin Wall. Said it would hurt relations between the two countries. But in the end, I'm not convinced our relations are all that good. His government is corrupt or inept or both. His people have a huge advantage in the world in natural resources and beautiful weather, but they remain underemployed and undereducated. Contrasted with India, which 40 years ago had considerably worse economic conditions than Mexico, who has made better use of the decades?

It's telling that Mr. Fox compares a border fence to the wall in Berlin. It tells me that he already thinks (as members of his administration have openly stated) that the Mexico really extends well north of the border. You see, the Berlin Wall divided Germany. The difference is that this fence is not dividing Mexico. It is a border fence. The Berlin wall, Mr. Fox, was built by it's owners to keep people in. Our wall, ineffective as it may turn out to be, is being built to keep people out. We wouldn't ordinarily need to do this if you didn't promote illegal emmigration as a birthright of your unfortunate people.

I want Mr. Fox and everyone else to consider that the United States isn't getting much out of the "relationship". They badmouth us, export their unemployed, undereducated and infirm. Import our dollars and continue to allow drug- and human- trafficking gangs to run the northern border regions. We build factories and refineries. Eventually, they nationalize them. Their military fires across the border on our citizens. They escort drug caravans into our land and have killed our border patrol agents.

We've become the world's lone superpower and most productive economy with precious little assistance from our neighbors who are barely capable of managing their own affairs.

Will the fence work? Not by itself, but it's a symbolic start. Increasing patrols, deploying troops at the border will absolutely reduce the incentive to try to cross. Stepping up enforcement, passing a national Prop187, reserving American entitlements for American citizens and legitimate residents, punishing (with jail time) and penalizing employers who break the rules will break the back of the "reconquista".

Like all big problems, there are things each of us can do, if we care.

For my part, I won't hire Mexicans to work on my property unless I have proof of legal residence and a work visa. I do insist that my contractors show me proper documentation for their laborers and I insist that violations result in monetary penalties--$100 per instance. I may pay 10% more for a roofing job, but I doubt it. It's still a competitive bidding situation. I don't patronize businesses that I believe encourage or hire illegal immigrants. As the housing market softens up a bit, individuals have a great deal of leverage. Why tolerate a contractor bringing criminals onto your property when you don't have to?

Write your congressmen and tell them you like the fence, but it's not enough. 700 miles of fence doesn't adequately cover 2400 miles of porous border. Fences are passive. Tell them to insist on local enforcement and federal support for it. English is really the only language the government needs to provide. Localization of documents, textbooks, signage is costly and a disincentive to assimilate. It takes a government issued photo ID to get on a plane or to buy a cerveza. Counterfeit resistant photographic or biometric voter identification is an idea whose time has come. Also, voting by noncitizens is an assault on this country every bit as serious (and likely much more effective) than a terrorist attack. Make it easier to identify those folks, take their stuff and expel them from the country.

Stand your ground. Do your part (like recycling) to reduce the economic incentive to invade and the invasion will stop. They don't really care much about the land. They want to coopt your lifestyle instead of improving the one in their own country. We just need to make that the considerably more costly option.

Cheers,

DT

How They Can Pay Their Dues

All the President's Men tell us that it's impossible to deport 12 Million criminals back to their homelands. We can't find them to round them all up and there's no way logistically to ship them out. Some of them have been here as productive members of society working at jobs we won't do ourselves, building our homes, picking our crops, cleaning our hotel rooms and caring for our children.

There was some other thing that happened maybe 150 years back where folks were more or less systematically impelled to leave their homeland and travel under wretched and dangerous conditions to this country to do jobs that white people supposedly wouldn't do for inadequate compensation. They didn't call those folks 'immigrants' at the time. Maybe it's best not to look back and draw this comparison. It's a slippery slope and the last time politicians and rich partisans got involved in the rhetoric, 170,000 men died in less than 4 years searching for the way to strike the proper balance.

We set a side a day every year to reflect on the lives of those 170,000 men who took up arms to, depending on who you listen to, stand up for the immigrants of their time or to defend the bigoted patriarchal anachronism that was southern agrarian society. I think the right side won in that struggle. The vast majority of Americans seem to agree. So we sit back on Memorial day and reflect, have a beer, watch a race, plant a flag and hopefully think about those 170,000 and the 1.3 million or so since who died fighting. And I think most of us are glad and proud that our country raised millions of men over the years to fight, bleed and die for our Way.

So, every 30 or 40 years, we seem to see two trends. A wave of immigrants heads this way from some corner of the world where the grass doesn't seem so green. The wave typically comes over with nothing but hope for a better opportunity for themselves and their children. They come. They go to Ellis Island or some other mass processing center to be registered, examined, processed and given access to the country. They go to work. They save. They send some of the money home to their parents and siblings who were not healthy enough or bright enough or bold enough to make the trip. They build communities and make spicy new dishes with inexpensive ingredients. They learn the language. They start families and then... usually... their children intersect with the other trend that seems to occur on a 30 or 40 year cycle. Their children, who have learned the language and grown up in the ethnic neighborhoods and seen their parents working hard all their lives step up. They lay down their hammers and shovels and they answer the call to fight for their country.

This is the generational progression of the immigrants. They come and labor and educate their children. Their children or grandchildren, raised with a decent work ethic and instilled with the unique pride of second and third generation Americans, enter the military where they demonstrate their commitment and learn politics, make a decent wage, send their children to better colleges. Those children and grandchildren, in turn, form the upper middle and upper class. The business leaders and politicians and movers and shakers.

That's the way it was with the asians, the italians, the poles, the germans, the irish, the palestinians and the jews that came to us in the 19th and 20th centuries. They came to sit at the table and, over generations, they found they could get a bigger slice of the pie and that there was still plenty to go around. That's how it was with my family.

This wave of immigrants is different in some respects. I believe they come for similar reasons, that they work hard, that they want good things for their children, that they send money home to those not adventurous enought to make the trip, that they like it here. But they skipped a step. In skipping the Ellis Island step, they've somehow botched the natural order. They haven't assimilated and been allowed to demonstrate their commitment. How can they? Their existence in this country is unlawful. They stay underground, to a certain extent. They don't melt in, they hide.

So the President's men say they've almost paid their dues, and we can't get rid of them anyway, so we should put them on the fast track. They talk about payment of back taxes and lengths of time in country. They make comparisons to speeding tickets and then they say that paying the back taxes amounts to these folks having paid their dues, their debt to society. Ellis Island and recognition by the government isn't how you become an American family. There's something to becoming part of the fabric of this nation that shouldn't be for sale and certainly shouldn't be determined solely on compliance with the tax code. That's obscene.

I don't want people to purchase a pass to the head of the line by paying $9700 to the IRS. It's not meaningful. But once again, we're in that cycle where politicians and wealthy men are extending the opportunity to the nation's less fortunate to take a risk, demonstrate their commitment and raise themselves up through the ranks. I've even heard anecdotes that one need not be a citizen to enlist and join the fight. I've seen at least one story where a young soldier died during the processing of his citizenship, which was awarded posthumously. That's the type of young hero I'm tempted to welcome into the fold. He was buried at Arlington at his mother's request. I hope there are others like him in our military and that they make it home, safe and sound. They'll bring with them skills and discipline and the ability and desire to make something of themselves. Their children will know where daddy (or mommy) stood and will proceed to follow the pattern.

Maybe this wave of immigrants should have access to a fast track solution. Payment of back taxes doesn't work for me. It doesn't assimilate. It doesn't separate the wheat from the chaffe. It doesn't develop leadership and integrity and commitment to the new home. Legal immigrants pay taxes on time and many still return to their countries of origin when their visas expire. That's not commitment. That's commerce. But, I submit that, if an immigrant wishes to take up arms in defense of this country and this culture, then we can roll into the enlistment process a procedure to make up for ducking the turnstiles at Ellis island. If they finish their hitch having served honorably then legal residency and the opportunity for citizenship should be granted, without question. They'll have completed the process, demonstrated their commitment to our country, and assimilated fully and we can ask no more of any American.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Where exactly? Hard to say. This is all new to me.

At the advice of friends, I'm working out my ideas, spreading good news and venting my frustrations on the web.

This may last a week or a month or 10 years. Let's just take it 1 day at a time.

I'm not a fan of public lewdness. Still, I think the Indiana Statute crosses the line. Hence "discernibly turgid". The legend that this was the extent of Jim Morrison's crimes on the eve of his arrest is untrue, but it gives me pause that the state of excitement of half the population should be regulated by public ordinance. Moreover, I may get pumped up over this or that--and you may not approve. For God's sake, don't legislate against it. If Morrison were with us today, it's likely his only means of being observed in a discernibly turgid state would involve the use of Viagara. It's unlikely he'd be arrested. He might even be invited to shoot an ad with Bob Dole.

I tend to be more conservative philosophically, but I think that makes me a man without a party. Don't get me wrong. I think Reagan was a great President and Kennedy was a great Actor. The revisionists tell us that one was an amiable dunce who very nearly brought us to nuclear armageddon, but the facts differ and there are folks who remember. The Shining Star of Camelot mishandled his role in the cold war and brought nuclear tipped russian missiles to within 30 miles of our shores. Later, we named our largest missile launchpad after him. The dunce made the calls that brought down the Berlin wall. The one thing the press ignore is that both Presidents ushered in periods of unparalleled economic growth and prosperity and did so by adopting remarkably similar fiscal policies. I hope history sorts itself out once Rather and Couric have faded from view. I hope the United States has another Ronald Reagan in her. Principled leaders seem to be in short supply in the beltway these days.

I guess the point is I don't want to offend, but I want even less to sit atop the tightly scripted, politically correct fence of nonoffense. Let me know if you're mad or you're not. It probably won't change my mind, but my views have been known to evolve, slowly--so slowly.

I'm not sure we can deport 12 million illegal, undocumented aliens, but it is the President's and Congress's, and Federal and Local Law Enforcement's duty to try. My previous employer had me take a "Franklin-Covey" time management course where they told us basically to achieve big ideas by building a plan on specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and tangible goals. So, why not set a plan to deport the first million by, say, May 1, 2007.

I've heard that the hispanic press objects to the use of the adjective "illegal" as a noun to describe a person who has illegally crossed the border into my country for whatever reason or who illegally remains in the country. I respect the editorial sentiment and thank those journos for defending proper use of my country's official language. "Illegal" is not a noun. "Criminal" is a noun and properly describes a person who perpetrates an illegal act, such as entering a neighboring country without abiding that country's immigration laws or remaining in that country for whatever reason without following that country's legal process to obtain legal residence or citizenship.

Criminal seems like such a harsh word for parents that just want to make a better life for their children. One wants to empathize with the individuals. "They work hard.", we're told or "They love this country." I suspect it would be easier to take their love on faith if it was the American flag they were wrapping themselves in, instead of the Mexican flag, on May 1 when they hoped to demonstrate their love by shutting down the American economy (or at least a few restaurants).

It is criminal, though, to present a false identity in order to secure employment and social and economic benefits where one has not been invited. Or am I wrong?

I suspect that, as long as the incentive remains, it will be difficult or impossible and extremely costly to deport 12 million "immigrants". Fine the employers (who are also criminals) and enforce the laws. Maybe fewer will come when gainful employment dries up. Maybe Americans won't work to care for our elderly or clean our homes, but I suspect if the price goes up 2 or 3 dollars per hour, our wealthy will find qualified domestic workers. The price of peaches may go up 20 cents a bushel. We'll deal with it.

I suspect the majority of those here will stay even if the legal economy no longer provides as much opportunity. Their children are here. There's not much to go home to. And we provide education, food stamps, subsidized housing and driver's licenses. 12 million people might be driven into criminal enterprise in order to keep a hold on those benefits. They'd fight to stay, I wager, rather than go back to Mexico and demand a responsible government and a decent economic opportunity in their homeland. But if those benefits were to be explicitly reserved for documented, legal immigrants and citizens? If the act of a State paying benefits to nonlegal residents were to be made unlawful? 12 million people might begin to deport themselves or perhaps move north of the border to Canada where they'd no doubt be welcomed and given shelter and work in the great socialist experiment to the north.

The thing is this. Newt's Republicans, Reagan's Republicans, they're all gone. They've been replaced by feckless political science majors, sycophants, panderers, underachievers and criminals, the same as Kennedy's democrats were in the 50's and 60's. They pretend to assemble a tough bill in the house which will be shredded by the omnibus bill in the Senate. All that will remain at the end is the "Guest Worker Program" and the pork and the union handouts. If there were principled men and women in Congress, interested in representing the will of their constituents (not manufacturing 12 million new constituents to replace us) then they would evaluate the proposals individually, giving honest debate, in order, to each of the following 10 corrective measures:

1. a physical barrier along a significant portion of our southern border;
2. enforcement of existing immigration laws;
3. increasing the border patrol with or without troops;
4. increasing INS activity in the interior;
5. Penalize with fines and jail time individuals guilty of hiring illegal residents;
6. Shut down, fine and/or confiscate the property of those businesses that hire illegal residents;
   
7. fining AND deporting all individuals encountered who do not have a documented, legal right to be here;
8. withdraw public assistance and other benefits for undocumented residents;
9. increasing the number of legal immigrant visas from Latin American countries; and
   
10. creating Amnesty or "guest worker" programs

All but the last would tend to decrease the incentive to enter illegally. Most of the first 9, if considered individually would find support of the majority of Americans. If most of the first 9 were passed before #10 -- Amnesty -- was given consideration in congress, then even Amnesty might be pallatable. It might do less damage, in any event. As it stands, there's a race across the the borderline to be the first person arrested after passage so that you can tell one last lie: "I've been here 5 years and 3 months, Mr. Man. Sign me up for benefits!"