In my mind, Ron Paul isn’t going quite far enough when he lists the problems that are destroying America. But I also understand he has to dance around certain facts because all of the brainwashed idiots out there who think the two parties are really fighting each other, the people who believe that the immigration debacle is natural, that we were attacked on 9/11 because “…they don’t like our freedom,” these people are too scared to look at unpleasant truths. Paul dances around naming the culprits, but his assault on the Fed is a good start. Maybe some of the sheeple will begin to look at things sideways. Sure, Arabs are jealous of our “freedom”. Sure, no conscious decision was made to replace the majority population of America with a new population. An uneducated population satisfied with lowbrow jobs and government handouts. Let other, culturally obedient “imports” handle the technical infrastructure and we’re set! Yep, it’s all natural. That’s why the same thing is happening throughout the West. It’s all chance. Except for the inconvenient fact that the people who WROTE the Immigration Act of 1965 (not Ted Kennedy, he was a “sponsor”) are the same people who have been the “majority” controlling the Fed since it’s inception, they are the same people who were looking for an excuse to get us into war in the middle east for their own selfish reasons, and they are the same people who control the media (they have the majority share holdings – despite claims of faceless corporation ownership). And gosh darn it, they are the same people who make sure Paul is ignored. Of course, all the good little brainwashed sheeple shit their pants at the truth, and in Pavlovian fashion screech and yell “racist” or “hater” or worse. Just because they’ve been trained to react that way instead of looking for the “why”. That trusting trait found at high levels among European derived cultures has been turned against us. This country literally underwent a coup in the 60’s and no one wants to admit it. Yeah, “radicals” like Abbie Hoffman just decided out of the blue to get their shtick going.

Yeah, laugh now. You won’t be laughing at all in 6 years or less.

You’ve already established how displeased you are with Ron Paul, so forget about him, eh? Me, Alex Jones, and all the rest of his supporters will be happy about that.

I agree with George and Tim that Libertarians are constitutionally contentious, if you’ll excuse the pun. The same people that question authority will also tend to question each other, and everything else. I find this more endearing and less contemptible, but it can indeed have the effect of tossing that baby out, even when the bathwater really isn’t that dirty.

I happen to agree with Ron Paul’s immigration platform as long as welfare and interventionist policies are in the mix. My opinion will change to the degree we refrain from offering a “free lunch” to everyone who wanders by, and refrain from forcefully meddling in the affairs of people (both here and abroad) who later target us as a result.

All this being said, I think public discussion is exactly what we do need. Unquestioning obedience to a candidate, a movement, a party, or a nation only serves the tyrant. Escaping from persecution and tyranny educated the people who founded this country in ways that those of us born to it in later generations can’t really appreciate. No doubt many people who choose to legally immigrate here have that first-hand understanding better than many native-born citizens as well.

If Ron Paul’s campaign cannot stand up to questions, it is doomed. The questions are only beginning to fly.

One of the many reasons I support Dr. Paul is because he up to that challenge. Name another candidate who even approaches Ron Paul in reasoned, constitutionally based policy. Name one whose history of standing by the convictions he espouses is even close. As the Texans say, they’re mostly “Big hat, no cattle.”

Go ahead and pick nits, ask questions, compare policies (if you can get the other candidates to state them). I remained convinced, not through blind obedience, not in defiance to guilt by association, and not because it’s popular or unpopular. I remain convinced because I actually have the option to vote for a candidate, warts and all. I have a chance to vote for a man who has not only espoused many of the policies I think are healthy for America, but actually worked toward them for decades. He’s actually stood against the tide in support of the constitution, spoken truth to power, and demonstrated integrity in a town where that is not rewarded. How astonishingly refreshing.

Valid points on the immigration issue from both you and TanGeng.

I am glad we agree for the most part on my number one.

I actually agree with you for the most part on your comment on number two. I am actually calling for far less stringent immigration laws as evidenced by my suggestion in number one. It is obvious what we are doing now doesn’t work.

For number three you said “Why is the citizenship an issue if you remove handouts for everyone?”. That is the kicker isn’t it. I would be happy if we could get rid of all the handouts right now, but that is not what we have today. We need a policy for today not down the road when and if we are able to get rid of all the welfare handouts. If we just open up the borders tomorrow without doing something about the welfare state it would be a disaster economically and for our freedoms.

I actually agree alot with you on immigration as to where we should strive to get to, but I think you are looking at where we should be at on step ten on steps one through ten and I am more concerned about what happens in the in-between steps in getting to number ten.

I also agree that Ron Pauls ideas on immigration don’t exactly align with mine but they come far closer than any other candidate that I can see.

I believe that we will get far closer to what you believe we should have for immigration policy if we elect Ron Paul than if we elect any other candidate. Once he is in office other freedom loving candidates that may be more in line with you on immigration will have a much better chance of being elected to office. This will give your stance on immigration a far better chance of becoming policy, even if Ron Paul doesn’t agree 100%, than if we elect one of the other statist candidates.

In my mind it will take some time to get rid of the welfare system and Ron Paul is our best chance to do so. Once that happens, immigration likely becomes a much smaller issue.

I’ll grudgingly concede that Ron Paul’s position is not as abhorrent as some (Tancredo, for instance). And he’s written articles outside of immigration that indicate he rejects racism as irrational collectivism, in addition to usually favoring free trade and free markets so his positions seem solid enough for me to vote for him. But then I still have to ask, why the harsher immigration standards and why are so many extremists who support collective ideas flocking to him? It just doesn’t fit. Anyway, that’s my conundrum. Thanks for the input, though, your point about Ron Paul still being the least worst candidate even if he’s not the perfect candidate is definitely something to mull over.

Ahh the crisis model for getting rid of the welfare state. I’d rather not resort to such a thing since it would result in tremendous upheaval, but I don’t know if it’s avoidable.

Oh, I wouldn’t doubt the price depressing effect of increased immigration. More workers and motivated workers means more wealth for society as a whole. I was reading some other paper that described used the wage depression argument to counteract the fact that real GDP growth is faster with more immigrants. I got really frustrated when they failed to even acknowledge the price depressing effects as well – as if to insinuate that all of the surplus production went to the corporations rather than benefiting everyone through competitive prices.

Anyways I think Ron Paul’s position on immigration is merely satisfactory. I’m not happy about his proposal as permanent policy, but his rhetoric and his logic around the subject is the best of all the candidates in the two major parties.

I don’t think you and I are that far apart on immigration, actually, I think our differences stem more from policy disagreements but we seem to have similar endgoals. For the record, I wasn’t referring to you as one of the extremists that put me off on Ron Paul…I never got the whole xenophobia vibe from you and you don’t seem prone to reciting empty, meaningless slogans when posed with a question :)

I’d agree with you that in a perfect world you’d get rid of welfare before opening the borders in an attempt to minimize economic cost. In the world we live in, however, I don’t see politicians ever slashing benefits until they’re faced with a crisis that forces them to, lest they threaten their incumbency, so if we wait until the welfare system is reformed to open the borders I think we’ll simply be waiting until the welfare system (Social Security, Medicare) crashes on its own anyway. In which case, why prolong the misery? Why not open the borders and force entitlement reform sooner rather than later?

Basically, the way I see it opening the borders will force entitlement reform, whereas keeping them closed will insure entitlement reform won’t happen for a long time. That probably comes off as a risky strategy to some, but frankly I think it’s the only way to reform both systems in our lifetime.

Come here.
Get register through the legal channels.
Be on your way to be naturalized.

Certainly the influx of immigrants has the effect of depressing wages at home, but it not like wages aren’t being depressed by competition from overseas sources. The only problems are:

the illegals usually don’t paying taxes
the illegals get welfare state benefits

But it seems to me that open immigration and welfare state means massive unemployment in the United States. I’d be rid of the welfare state before I decided to let immigrants come. But the end goal would be easier immigration.

I don’t know Lou Dobbs personally so I can’t vouch for how nice or not nice he is. All I have to go off of are his columns where he spends most of his time bagging on Mexicans and free enterprise while claiming that capitalism doesn’t work. Frankly I find most of what he preaches these days questionable, poorly argued, and rather offensive. I also question whether he actually believes in it, since he started his career as a free-market economist and switched to populism once his ratings went in the tank, possibly so he could differentiate himself from his competitors.

Best of luck on your recovery.

My definition for “open borders” would be more or less unlimited immigration. I don’t see opening the borders as incompatible with requiring immigrants to comply with our laws, since our borders are largely legislative creations anyway, so I’m not quite sure where your opposition stems from. We don’t have border controls between states after all, and yet people moving across state borders are held accountable to each state’s laws. We have people here who reside in one state and work in another, yet we don’t accuse Nebraskans of stealing Kansans’ jobs as we do with the Mexicans. We have extradition proceedings between countries, the same as we have extradition proceedings between U.S. states. I just don’t see the open borders between countries as significantly different than the open borders between states. As for the rest of the world’s desire for freedom, I haven’t seen it as being any different than ours…people want prosperity and stability and a future and not to pay taxes in the rest world, same as they do here. And, as history has taught us, most immigrants who come to America have eventually assimilated into the culture and abide by our laws leading me to believe that our visions of individuality and freedom aren’t exclusive to Americans. And the immigrants bring additional labor and utility to our country as well, as well as exporting our ideals back to their own countries. Why would we want to keep them out?

For your other question, the answer is no, I haven’t heard a mainstream candidate with a better plan on immigration (or pretty much anything else). But I also don’t see the other candidates going on Alex Jones’ show, nor do I see the other campaigns getting tied as closely to anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories as Ron Paul’s campaign has been. A lot of the people who rabidly support Ron Paul seem to have goals that oppose individual freedom, and it makes me wonder if I’m missing something in the campaign that’s attracting these guys and just where the priorities of the candidate lie. If it comes to a choice between abolishing the welfare state or closing off the borders to enable us to keep welfare going, which would Paul choose?
And if he’s willing to pass laws that discriminate against people solely on the basis that they’re not from here, I have a big problem with voting for him.

For your suggestions:

1) I agree with you that immigration should be made easier and I’d be okay with basic background checks, although I think that it would be incredibly costly and almost impossible to successfully implement (but I’d be willing to give it a try). And I think that your proposal would eliminate a lot of the illegal immigration problem simply because they have an real incentive to go through the system (currently they don’t). I’m skeptical that it would make patrolling our borders much easier, but it might. So I think you’ve got a good plan and one that tries to reconcile controlled immigration with the free market. Problem is, Ron Paul doesn’t appear to be pushing that plan or anything like it, he’s pushing to make immigration more difficult. That’s my quarrel here because that plan doesn’t make sense for a free market advocate.

2) I don’t think eliminating the welfare state is as much of a pipe dream as you might think. Nonetheless, if your rationale for keeping strict immigration laws is that removing them would overwhelm the welfare state, then you’re using one bad law (welfare) to justify another (restricted immigration). And it’s a losing proposition anyway because I don’t believe that more restrictive immigration laws would work anyway, I think the level of restriction we have now is inherently unenforceable (as evidenced by the large number of illegals). How would creating more laws change that unless you drastically increase the size and spending of government to enforce those laws? I don’t think you can…not without more expense than it’s worth for the benefit you derive.

3) Why is the citizenship an issue if you remove handouts for everyone? And why the hoops for citizenship anyway? I was born here and I didn’t have a citizenship test, nor did anyone else I knew. Why are the immigrants held to a higher standard? More precisely, why should we pay for a government program to hold them to a higher standard. I agree with you about the taxes and the crime, however. They should be held accountable like everyone else. Incidentally, here’s a story about how many illegal immigrants actually pay income tax…mainly because they hope it will help them earn their citizenship:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040415/news_1n15taxes.html