If You're Thinking of Voting Republican Any Time Soon, Read This Article
From CNSNews ("The right news. Right now."):
"61 Percent of Republicans and Republican Leaning Independents Say GOP Puts 'Too Little' Emphasis on Illegal Immigration, Says Washington Post Poll"
That's a story which then goes on to note that 60 percent of the same cohort believes that the GOP puts "too little" emphasis on government spending and 60 percent say it puts too little on "economy and jobs."
But really, in a time of declining immigration (both legal and not), of staggering deficits that build off the Bush years' precedent, and a craptacular economy, it sure does make sense to stress the illegal immigration issue. Yeah, that's the ticket. As an email from CNSNews' communciations director underscores, "Of those surveyed, another 29% think the issue gets the right amount of focus, while only 1% think the issue gets too much attention. That means that -- taken together – 90% of Republicans and Independents think immigration should continue to be a defining issue for the party and for America." [emphasis in original]
Good luck in 2010, fellas. You're gonna need it.
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How do these numbers compare with unaligned voters and Democrats? Is it right to assume (as you seem to be doing) that hostility to (illegal) immigration is a losing issue?
And is it not possible that the problems you cite (deficits and poor economy) make people more hostile to immigration, that natives feel that immigrants use up government funds and take their jobs?
I basically agree with the reason line on immigration, but I am not sure the average voter does, so I'm not sure this will hurt the GOP in 2010.
It does seem Reason contributors put extraordinary emphasis on immigration issues.
Should make Pat Buchanan happy.
If the country turns into Mexico in 30 years, will anything else matter?
I'd rather live in Mexico than Sweden
A lot of good bush era pandering to latin americans did Mccain and company in 2008. One of the parties needs to actually stand up for sovereignty and American citizenship.
Now you care about sovereignty?
Shut the fuck up, LoneWackos.
Be careful where you pluralize.
LonesWacko?
Nick, you just reported that Republicans AND Independents are concerned about illegal immigration, yet you somehow see it as a losing issue for the GOP? I thought you were more politically astute than that.
"61 Percent of Republicans and Republican Leaning Independents"
AKA, the swing voters who put Obama in the White House, no? McCain clearly did not win all traditionally Republican leaning Independents. This poll appears to, sadly, claim that one reason why he did not is his pro-immigration stance and record.
The article seems to be saying they should fire the voters and hire better ones. What other point could be made by saying that a large swath of potential voters are "wrong" on illegal immigration (as a priority) from our POV?
So Nick, what you're saying (discounting that some people responding to the poll could be in favor of Bush and McCain's pro-immigration stances and that and referring to that) is that GOP politicians are significantly more pro-immigration than the electorate, both their own party regulars and that of Independents who might be persuaded to vote for them? That must be true, based on the stands of their previous President and previous Presidential nominee.
Sounds like the GOP is pretty willing to sacrifice political advantage rather than pander to the anti-libertarian sentiments of the demos. I guess Nick to trying to reassure us that Bush and McCain, and other Republican politicians, stuck to libertarian principles on some important issues, and so libertarians should feel safe to trust them.
Not sure I'm fully convinced by Nick's pro-GOP message, though. 😉
I'm confused. I thought even the libertarian definition of national sovereignty included the right to enforce restrictions on movement of noncitizens across national borders. I don't agree with the current immigration law, but I'd like to see some limitations on free movement across our borders. Does it put me in the racist thug camp to not want Central American felons moving freely across the US border? Am I a bad libertarian for wanting to break the coyote system that routinely sees people exploited and killed?
Immigration prohibition will work as well in breaking the coyote system as drug prohibition does in trying to "break" drug smuggling.
As long as immigration restrictions are for legitimate causes enforced against specific individuals, you'll get little argument from me.
By the way, "the quota for your class of immigrant is full" is neither a legitimate cause nor is it applied to a specific individual.
Brett, what ever kind of libertarian you are...I am also.
Brett, what ever kind of libertarian you are...I am also.
In most of libertopia, it does. In Reasonland, libertarianism means people are free to have exactly what they don't want shoved down their throats.
Fuck the Republican Party.
According to an article I read yesterday, Rush Limbaugh is the face of the Republican Party, so - no thanks.
Am I a bad libertarian for wanting to break the coyote system that routinely sees people exploited and killed?
Umm, where do you think the "coyote system" came from?
Unreasonable regulation that drives demand does NOT exclude interdicting human trafficking from legitimate government action. I'm happy to consider changing the law -- I'm not okay with selective and arbitrary enforcement. That puts me in the 'more focus on Illegal Immigration' camp.
I had no plans to do so, but thanks for reminding me my these fuckwits deserve the wandering in the wilderness they gots.
They took our jobs!
That's too bad. I was kinda hoping the Pubies would continue to hedge on the issue, and finally annoy people enough that we'd get an American version of the BNP.
You guys aren't exactly fast learners, are you?
Well, what do we mean by immigration?
Do we want to wink at illegal immigration so that we create a permanent underclass that cannot assert their human rights?
Do we want an effectively open border so that we cannot attempt to secure ourselves from infiltrators who wish to do our country harm?
I've spent the bulk of my adult life as an alien and have lived in 4 cultures outside the country of my birth, so I think I can reasonably say that I am pro-immigrant. But for the above reasons, I can see that I might have answered appropriately worded questions the same way as that 61%
"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."
That's an excellent statement against those who would abrogate individual rights purportedly to preserve a nation founded upon the principle of individual rights.
Since I believe the fact that there is so much illegal immigration is the single greatest rights abrogation committed by the United States government today, I would have to say there is too little emphasis from both major parties on illegal immigration.
We all need to emphasize that illegal immigration should be ended now by getting rid of all quotas, durations, and employment requirements on immigrant visas.
C'mon, you can be anti illegal immigration and still be pro immigration. Our present system is the worst of both worlds. It is not fair to generalize on the basis of polls, when the phrasing of the question is crucial.
Agreed. Nick and others conflate the two.
Get rid of the current welfare state, make all schools private and I will gladly embrace Reason's "Open Borders" mindset.
Open borders. Welfare state. Economic prosperity. Pick any two.
Welfare State and Economic prosperity is a possibility? Really? How do you figure?
I agree, I think there is a huge middle ground here.
It isn't unreasonable to ask for enforcing some sort of control over who gets into our country.
The control elements need to be aligned with economic reality and not based on xenophobia.
Let people from Mexico come in to work. If they bring their families, let them know that they won't get a dime of taxpayer support and they will have to pay for those children to use the schools. If any guest in our country breaks the law, they should be booted immediately.
Finally if the reforms are implemented and there is a reasonable and viable system for people to come to our country to work, really screw over employers who employ illegal immigrants.
Is that like saying I am anti prohibition, but I am in favor of the War on Drugs?
No, a fairer analogy would be being in favor of legal drug activity but opposed to illegal drug activity. Such as wanting legitimate pharmacies, but not illegal drug dealers, to keep operating. That's a rather common type of position people take on all sorts of issues.
No one has been doing anything constructive about illegal immigration. This at a time when we are supposedly worried about terrorists sneaking into the country.
Saying one or both of the parties should pay more attention is like saying 2+2=4.
Of course there are larger issues, but as long as government hands out tons of services (i.e. isn't libertarian-run) this will be a problem.
Most non-idiots recognize this.
The choice is clear: if you run a welfare society, you cannot have open borders.
We have to choose one or the other.
We don't have to choose one or the other.
Just don't give immigrants welfare.
And don't give immigrants' citizen children welfare either.
Hell, immigrants are in such sorry shape that Mexicans are actually sending money to their families in the U.S. now. Republicans ought to turn off Fox News and go browse some other media outlets from time to time. Might help them get tuned back in to reality.
We have 12 million illegal immigrants in this country and double digit unemployment. Which do you think would be more beneficial to the economy? Employing 12 million Americans, or Mexicans sending money to their relatives?
Anyway, what happened to all that crap about "They only come here to work! If there wasn't work for them, they would leave!".
If there's no work for them, why the fuck are they still here, and what are they living on?
Re: Slap the Enlightened,
If there's no work for them, why the fuck are they still here, and what are they living on?
They are still here because they have families and assets tied to this country. That's why. Most live on other jobs besides construction or have actually created businesses from the ground up.
If they were to just lift their stuff and leave, it would be an economic disaster due to their importance in the productive (i.e. Non Government) sector.
Somehow, if your gripe is that immigrants use up public services, I don't think news that immigrants are poor is going to ease your fears.
My point is that immigrants don't have the motivation to come here that they once had. Why come to the U.S. when you're better off in Mexico. Hence, 61% of Republicans want to ramp up efforts to thwart a problem that is resolving itself.
Holy fuck, you think having 10-20 million people who are considered illegal and subject to the worst of the black-market in a variety of areas is a problem that is resolving itself?
Find a wall and beat your head against it until you see brain.
My solution to illegal immigration has always been to institute the fair tax to eliminate the tax evasion issue. If citizens and immigrants work and pay taxes the same, the issue becomes far less important.
Immigrants of all type already pay taxes, even federal.
yeah i remember reading about how illegal immigrants will help keep Social Security solvent longer then otherwise simply because they pay into it yet will never take out of it.
however, most illegal immigrants don't make enough to pay federal taxes and qualify for various public (read gov't) services and programs. the economic drain is more than the contribution.
the only real practical solution i can see at this point is to: enact and enforce a comprehensive and mandatory e-verify system for employment, even incorporating work visas for seasonal workers, etc; require all peoples living illegally in the US to register, allowing a grace period before any future discoveries result in deportation; working that registration list to collect a fine and create a temporary work visa program, all those who do not work are deported after their visa expires; secure our borders and eliminate the loophole incentives for illegal immigration; create learn english programs statewide that actually work - including basing any public assistance upon a person's completion of such a program; reform the legal immigration process, to include altering the flow according to sustainable economic and social conditions in the US; deport incarcerated illegal aliens to their home country, making it clear that relations with the US will be determined by their civil but just confinement.
establishing truly libertarian-only ideas to our current problem will not solve it because the entitlement and welfare state's fire has already been established and is continually being fed fuel and fanned.
once a return to a benchmark is completed, moving forward with libertarian principles would be reasonable, practical, and successful.
The most important immigration reform is to abolish ICE (used to be the INS). This organization has to be burned to the ground. There is no fixing it at this point.
I met my wife in college and when we got married, dealing with ICE was a nightmare. You would think that two college educated folks would be able to navigate the shoals of paperwork with no problems, right? Wrong.
At one point we had to go to the local ICE office and ask them for advice. They were kind enough to give us some.
Later, after following their advice to a tee, we were hit with a "waiver fee" for violating committing visa fraud. The visa fraud was a direct result of following their advice.
If you wanted to enact immigration reform, you would simply pass a law that required all citizens to report to their local ICE office to register themselves. The registration could be ludicrously simple, I don't care how simple, ICE will make it a nightmare.
Once normal folks saw how horrible the system is, they would be willing to scrap it and start over.
No libertarian would ever tell me that I couldn't exclude whomever I wanted from my private property for any reason.
However, Reason is quite willing to tell me that a country's citizens cannot collectively ban non-citizens from its public lands.
No libertarian would ever tell me that I couldn't exclude allow whomever I wanted from on my private property for any reason.
However, Reason is you are quite willing to tell me that a country's citizens cannot collectively ban non-citizens from its public my private lands.
I'll compromise with you: you can have any non-citizen you want on your private land, but he can't set foot on any public land. Deal?
So long as unowned commons and rights of way aren't called "public" by mere government fiat.
Air force bases and federal courthouses, I'll give you. That's government property, properly managed by the government. I'll even give you national parks.
I won't give you roads unless there is an alternative right of way to my property.
Deal?
No deal. Public land is public land. But I'll let you helicopter them in and out, if you like.
Private land is not any good without a right of way to it. If the government can claim ownership not only of the improvements to the right of way, but of the right of way itself, then the rights of the owner of the private land have been abrogated.
The rights of property owners do not include the right to aid and abet violations of other laws, including immigration laws. Try again.
Just to clarify, if the government declared your land "public", it's public land?
They aren't called public by government fiat. They're called public because they're supported by public money.
And no, they aren't yours to grant access to.
The government makes improvements to the roads. It is quite within its rights to receive just recompense for those improvements.
The government is not within its rights to prohibit travel along the right of way it improved just because it improved it. By doing so, it is subtracting from the bundles of rights of all properties accessed by that right of way.
Your understanding of the common law of property is incorrect. Ownership of a parcel of land does not create an easement on other land or a license to cross other land, even if that's the only way to access the parcel.
No, ownership itself does not create the easement or right of way. But the definition of the property virtually always includes it.
I'll tell you what. You can keep pulling non-existant rights out of your ass on Hit and Run, and I'll keep voting for candidates that promise to put troops on the border with orders to stop unauthorized parties from crossing it by any means necessary.
Deal?
Why don't you think you have the right to travel, reside, and work where you can find mutually agreeable terms? Why don't you think you have the right to transport, house, or employ others with whom you can find mutually agreeable terms?
No, I do not. I have the right to those things only in countries where I have a legal right to be in the first place. I certainly don't have a right to march into any country I please and demand those rights.
Maybe you should politely ask to move to a country that was not founded on the notion that rights are independent of and precede the powers of government.
You can hire and house anyone you want, provided that you don't trespass on my property in doing so.
This is getting a little complicated, but my disagreement with you is simple. I believe that those whose votes determine how public property is used and administered have the collective right to set whatever conditions they wish for the use of that property, just as if it were private property. It actually comes as a bit of a shock that the Reason crowd disagrees so stridently.
And I believe that governments have limited just powers and do not acquire property rights over commons and rights of way merely by claiming dominion over a territory that includes them.
But you also believe that by designating land as a park, the government can then exclude certain classes of individuals from that land.
You're starting to lose me here. The government can keep foreigners out of a public park because it cuts the grass and supplies rangers to patrol the grounds, but it can't keep foreigners off its roads even though it paves the roads and supplies cops to enforce traffic laws. That's your position, right?
What if we call the road a "parkway"? Is that more park or more road?
And you're making a distinction between parks and roads because you need roads to get illegal aliens to your property so that they can toil there? That's your argument?
One more question: shouldn't Canadians and Senegalese be allowed to vote on the laws that govern our public roads? We can't ban them from public roads, because apparently those are open to all humanity. So why should only American citizens be permitted to vote on the rules that govern those roads?
I'm making a distinction between parks and roads because the former is a small intrusion by government into the private domain for public goods reasons while the latter is an appropriation of the common law right of way and an abrogation of the preexisting individual rights of travel and property access.
And governments need not allow noncitizens to vote on how roads are managed because neither citizenship nor voting are rights: they are in fact government manufactured entitlements. Travel, residence, and association, on the other hand, are rights -- those very rights that governments are instituted to secure.
Well spoke MikeP
"common law right of way"
You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means.
"neither citizenship nor voting are rights"
Voting isn't a right? Seriously? That's the rhetorical pretzel you're going to contort yourself into to justify why a noncitizen cannot be permitted from strolling freely through any country he wishes?
Of course voting is not a right. People in monarchies don't get to vote. Does that mean their right to vote has been abrogated? No. I don't get to vote for the candidates I want to see in the House because they aren't in my district. I also don't get to vote today. Does that mean my right to vote has been abrogated? No. If the state tells you how and when you can exercise a "right", it's probably not a right.
Rights accrue to every person simply by virtue of being a person. Rights are neither constructed nor defined nor given by governments. Governments only recognize and secure them.
Rights preexist and precede government, and all legitimate government powers are derived solely from the charge to protect those preexisting rights.
But really, in a time of declining immigration (both legal and not), of staggering deficits that build off the Bush years' precedent, and a craptacular economy, it sure does make sense to stress the illegal immigration issue.
Shut the fuck up lonewacko
It would be nice if Reason actually stood up for the Libertarian Party instead of spending so much time convincing people to vote Democrat.
Many reason writers and commenters just love the taste of that Obama cock.
I'm with Milton Friedman (December 26, 2005 interview on Charlie Rose)
"Look, you can't have open borders when you have a welfare state."
One of these days Reason and the H&R crowd will realize that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about illegal immigration. Instead you paint everyone with that view as "brownskin haters" or some such.
This is definitely one issue on which I'm with the Republicans.
I'm with Milton Friedman (lecture What is America)...
Lovely.
Go rule of law.
Libertarians in favor of open borders under the current conditions are idiots. Idealistic idiots. But idiots nonetheless.
I am in favor of open borders. I also believe that all immigrants and all US-born citizen children of immigrants should be ineligible for any individualized welfare. Government subsidy must not be a draw for immigration.
Since the borders could be opened with a law that, effectively, adds a class of visa called Indefinite Resident and renders the holder and any citizen children ineligible for individualized welfare -- just as illegal immigrants are -- I don't find any problem with open borders under the current conditions. The conditions will necessarily change with the immigration policy.
Roll back the welfare state first & and then we can talk about a more reasonable open borders policy. Our country is already at a point where there are more people in the cart than pulling it.
Add Ten to Twenty Million people to that cart and it won't even fucking move.
maybe we rollback the borders and bankrupt the welfare state?
I mean it doesn't look like the welfare state can be rolled back otherwise.
"in a time of declining immigration... it sure does make sense to stress the illegal immigration issue."
I don't know about you, but when I have to fix the valve on my water tank, I schedule it for when the tank is empty, not for when it's full.