TedM,

I’ve been meaning to pick up Huntington’s book but haven’t tracked down my round tuit. I will read it.

We do need to have a national “conversation” about immigration but Americans have gone completely bonkers on this issue.

I am the ONLY person I know who was genuinely glad when Bush threw that immigration proposal on the table. Everybody else I had any discussion with about this went into spitting screed mode in ten seconds flat. I was astonished by the reaction. He got splattered and smashed from both sides of the spectrum and every point in between as far as I can tell. I did some quick scanning of the proposal and it seemed far from ideal, but it sure looked like a valid starting point for a discussion.

There are two things I know we, the United States, are not going to do any time soon:

1. Seal the borders. Its not going to happen.

2. Round up and deport all the illegal immigrants. Not gonna happen.

So let’s start figuring out how we want to handle the borders and what levels of immigration make sense and whether or not we want to profile or give preference. And we need to start figuring out what the heck we want to do about “documentation” and public services and welfare. I have no animosity toward any would be immigrant but I don’t see how making a dive into the endzone for a entry level touchdown entitles one to an education at taxpayer expense. And if one wanders down to wherever it is your local goverment handles things like “head start” and “language training” and “know your benefits” type agencies (this will typically be something like the county capital) you might be surprised to find that these programs are swarmed with immigrants and the “legal vs. illegal” is handled as “don’t ask, don’t tell”. I happened upon this in my area by accident and did a shallow little look into it and it was mind boggling how we handle this sort of thing.

Let’s figure out what we want to do about the illegals already here. From the Otherwise Usefully Intelligent I here nothing between “open borders” and “round ‘em up and deport ‘em”. The last numbers I heard for illegals already here is somewhere between 6 and 14 million. Anyone who believes for one moment that we’re going to start kicking in doors and rounding up between 6 and 14 million people is smoking some really potent stuff. We’ll have “hands across America” conga lines in 30 minutes flat. We’ll have millions of Americans lined up a dozen deep protecting illegal enclaves. I’d be sorely tempted to join them to be honest. Despite the fact that I’m a jackbooted, brownshirted, charter member of the VRWC I don’t actually harbor any desire to see jackbooted brownshirt behavior in my nation.

Our police departments apparently want no part of dealing with immigration issues. Our welfare services people want no part of it or, conversely, see it as their job to help illegals. Our border patrol people are catching something like a million a year and missing another million. When illegals get here they find easy ways to get whatever documentation they need to look like a legal for all necessary purposes. And we have people who think its a good idea to give illegals the right to vote.

Completely baffling and what my mom always called “one mell of a hess”. But NOBODY seems to want to have the discussion. Its straightaway to the screaming and accusations. Sigh.