My question is the harsh rhetoric about legal or illegal immigrants. Those are very different issues.

I can't watch the video on the work computer -- so I don't know if that was addressed in it or not, but it wasn't clear from the write up.

Posted by: frankie | April 18, 2008 2:20 PM

Moving beyond the immigration emotion issue (which is obviously quite heated), this is really a legal issue, and where a majority of conservatives have the problem. Illegal immigration is just that - illegal.

It's law breaking.... Lawlessness....

Part of my ancestry is due to immigration. I am cool with immigration. I wouldn't be here without it. Just do it properly, fairly and LEGALLY. Just as we were taught in school, "don't cut in line - it is not fair!"

Other that, the more the merrier!

Posted by: Armed2Win | April 18, 2008 2:51 PM

I'm against illegal immigration, so that makes me hateful? Is the headline to this story an intentional instigation?

Posted by: Blake | April 18, 2008 4:35 PM

Blake -

I don't think it means your hateful if you're against illegal immigration. That's like a saying a hospital that closes it's door when it runs out of beds (or money)is being hateful.

Posted by: frankie | April 18, 2008 5:55 PM

I really like "Through the Plexiglass" - I thought it did a good job in demonstrating how broken our immigration system is in a humourous way. Beyond any political message the short is trying to convey - the video is a demonstration of how to use technology available to most of us at home to do advocacy and education on any issue.
I also wonder to myself if people like Blake who say they are against "illegal immigration" are able to distinguish between the screwed up US immigration system which is completely devoid of any sense of justice, efficiency and vision for integrating the immigrant population for the betterment of the country and the actually people who are screwed by the system.
Sadly, my experience has led me to believe that most people are unable to make that distinction and thus believe the problem lies with the immigrant - not the messy politics between the US government's bad political and economic policies which have paralyzed the country in creating an immigration system that works for immigrants and the country

Posted by: Evelyn | April 18, 2008 7:03 PM

Illegal immigration occurs for many complex reasons and is not as black or white as some believe. Those that come "illegaly" do so not out of disrespect or disdain for the US, but because there are very few if any legal ways to enter this country. Only a certain # of visas are granted to each coutnry, and, mexico for example, has more demand than supply. It is not as easy to enter "the right way" as people think. Furthermore, no one is cutting in line per say because these individuals are not in line and do not affect those inj line who had the benefit of finind legal recourse. What we need is sensible immigration reform. Please don't simplify this very complex human rights issue.

Posted by: Michelle | April 18, 2008 8:36 PM

"You could only find three people in that little city to talk?" Moderatelad

Well, yeah! Since the activities in which they were engaged could end up having them brought up on federal charges of aiding and abetting. That is a very real possibility down there.

I remember attending a Bible study about a mile away from the Rio Grande back in 2005. When I asked the Bible study host if he saw undocumented immigrants coming through his area, he stated that he had seen them and had called the border patrol on them. I can just remember wanting to get out of there. Those people were MEAN. I see that there are a number of people posting in response to this blog entry that would have felt right at home with that crowd.

Posted by: JamesMartin | April 18, 2008 9:38 PM

"Lawbreaking is lawbreaking"? Are you an expert in immigration law? Did you even watch the Plexiglass video? It seemed to me that the point is that our outdated laws are what's to blame.

Posted by: John Gordon | April 18, 2008 11:05 PM

RJohnson, I am completely in agreement. Companies that hire illegal immigrants should be fined, and big time! I am reminded of the meat packaging plant that recently had a raid which netted quite a few undocumented immigrants. The next time the plant opened, there was quite a LONG line of Americans citizens with applications.

Michelle, coming to America or immigrating to America is NOT a humans rights issue. No one has any RIGHT to live here or deserves to live here. One is either born here or immigrates here legally, but to say its a human rights issue is poor logic, in my opinion. (For the sake of honesty, I even disagree with the logic behind Cubans coming here illegally - its not fair to the Mexicans! Its a double-standard.)

I find it amusing that the Mexican government is so hard on the U.S.A for its border problems, (including readers of this blog) yet when it comes to Mexico's souther border, where they shoot illegal immigrants on site and ask questions later, there is no outcry from these same folks - specifically American activists. Seriously. Mexican police and government forces shoot Central Americans on site when they are caught attempting to evade Mexico's southern border patrols. If you don't believe me, look it up. It is rather startling.

Despite all the political implications, I do believe one thing must be kept in mind. These are all God's kids too. Therefore, they must be treated with dignity and kindness. And most definitely love.

Posted by: Armed2Win | April 18, 2008 11:13 PM

If you allow illegal immigration, and individuals to cross the border whenever they want to, then the following things are possible:

1. Terrorists, drug cartels and criminals can come through unchecked.
2. The Government cannot screen for serious diseases (tuberculosis, leprosy, etc.) Ellis Island screened for infectious diseases at one point. Just for the record, there is a resurgence of these "older" diseases in the US. Where do you suppose most cases are located? Border states and undocumented immigrants.
3. It is unfair to the rest of the world! What about Bosnians or Sudanese or Indians who want to immigrate here? They can't get in because quotas get filled up.
4. Mexican immigrants, specifically undocumented workers and illegals are often taken advantage of - they don't get good salaries.
5. They stress distressed economies by taking money from the system without returning it (they send their money to Mexico to help that economy). What ends up happening is the local and state governments bear the brunt of the financial burden of free health care or schooling for non taxpaying individuals. This then trickles down to already strapped for cash Americans in the form of increased taxes and health care premiums.
6. Smaller hospitals are going out of business because they cannot afford to take care of so many people for free.

Again, I am NOT against immigration. I don't hate immigrants - my great grandfather was an immigrant - I am not so far removed! The accusations of hate are unfounded. In this debate, I think it is appropriate to note that Jesus Himself told his followers to "render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's" - otherwise, follow the laws of the land! "Unto God that which is God's" is not the job of the state - but of people like you and me. Charities and the church - helping those in need and "clothing the naked, feeding the hungry..."

Shalom...

Posted by: Armed2Win | April 19, 2008 7:57 AM

At www.thefaithdebate.com you can discuss this issue, share your opinions with others and get to know what other people have to say. Be a part of the debate!

Posted by: The Faith Voice | April 19, 2008 10:28 AM

White folks and their descendants have been kicking people of color off their land for centuries and then doing their damndest to keep them from coming here with equal rights to their own, or at all.

Now that's the truth. It doesn't mean ALL white folks - but in general it's true.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 19, 2008 11:44 AM

Sojourner Truth, are you serious? Can you be more incredulous and perhaps even a bit racist with your comments? It's generally all the white people?

At my place of employment, I was talking with an immigrant from Singapore and he was ticked off at the illegal immigrants from Mexico. Why? Because they didn't have to go through the process that he did. It was not fair or just

He was angry, and rightly so. My question Sojourner, was he racist too?

When logic fails, why do some always resort to playing the racist card. It's a weak argument, and usually filled with vitriol.

Posted by: Armed2Win | April 19, 2008 12:26 PM

THERE IS NO LINE FOR POOR PEOPLE wanting to immigrate to the United States under current "legal" circumstances. To make it worse, the North-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement that the US signed with Mexico and Canada has only excacerbated the level of poor people in Mexico, while a couple of US agriculture companies have seen their profits almost triple since it was signed in 1994. Then the US experiences higher flows of undocumented immigrants that give these US farms an even bigger "flexible" labor force, with the term "flexible" meaning that these workers can be underpayed, overworked, and fired when needed. To top it all off, we are sitting on the sideline of it all and debating about building some HUGE wall to keep these poor people out. We should be ashamed of ourselves.

Posted by: HM | April 19, 2008 12:37 PM

I just want to say that I liked both videos. The first, emphasizing the outdated laws that need to be changed, and the second, showing how our faith and God's commandments have primacy over outdated unjust human laws. I know it is not a simple matter to solve, but at least we can have the right, loving and compassionate attitude.

Posted by: Jenaro Rodriguez | April 19, 2008 1:50 PM

I don't think that crossing the U.S. border was one of the inalienable rights envisioned by the Founders.

Posted by: Gordon | April 19, 2008 3:24 PM

I live in AZ and trust me, the only way i can describe the anti-illegals rhetoric being thrown around in print, on the radio and the web is HATE. Its sad. Generally, whites here assume that all Mexicans are illegal.

This is the United States of Fear. Our ancient immigration laws were made out of fear and they are upheld and defended by morons with guns because of fear. Armed2Win's list can be summed up as fear of terrorsts, fear of economic harm, fear of people unlike us.

Change things.

Posted by: rethynk.org | April 19, 2008 3:57 PM

Making fun of people who are for tighter immigration laws and characterizing them as people of hate achieves nothing and for this to be encouraged by my fellow christian greatly troubles and saddens me.

Posted by: Russell | April 19, 2008 4:31 PM

Pastor Jeff,

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

I love that quote. I really do, as I believe that ALL people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From Mexico to Madagascar, from Australia to Austria....

Just do it legally. Thats all. Note, it does not say, "We hold these truths to be self-evident......Life, Liberty, pursuit of Happiness and U.S. citizenship to whoever, whenever, and however.

Without laws and the following of them, you will only get, in the end, anarchy.

Posted by: Armed2Win | April 19, 2008 4:45 PM

"Without laws and the following of them, you will only get, in the end, anarchy."

Isn't that what Bull Connor said about Martin Luther King's marches for equality, which were illegal?

Posted by: N.M. Rod | April 19, 2008 4:54 PM

Tom Tancredo just denounced the Pope for advocating compassion for immigrants!

Wow, the religious "cons" are really mad at this theologically conservative Pope!

He's even being accused of meddling in American politics!

Or only being for them insincerely, out of self-interest, since they are mostly Catholics! :-)

Tancredo finally self-destructs.

Posted by: N.M. Rod | April 19, 2008 5:24 PM

As an immigration attorney, I can tell you that there are VERY few avenues to immigrate legally. I liked the video for its humor, and sadly, much of its satire is true (mounds of paper, lack of customer service, etc.), because we have been pouring $$$ into enforcement at the border and not into any meaningful, comprehensive immigration reform.

I am all for a Canadian-like "points" system, where immigrants who offer needed skills for our economy, who learn English, who pay taxes, who are not "criminals", who wait their turn to immigrate, who pay a fine for entering illegally, etc. can earn their legal status. Just my 2 cents after practicing immigration law for over a decade.

Posted by: Mere | April 19, 2008 6:58 PM

If these guys want to do political parody, I suggest they learn from someone who has done it successfully.

I know I'm probably going to get some wierd looks for this, but they might want to check out Michael Moore's Canadian Bacon, which definitely had a left-of-center viewpoint but was still funny. Part of the reason for that was that while Moore definitely though Canada better than the US in a lot of ways, he was capable of poking fun at the object of his admiration.

(For instance, there's a scene where a group of Americans, trying to provoke Canadians into a confrontation, drive into Canada in a van painted with anti-Canadian slogans. They are pulled over by the police and forced to repaint their van, this time with half of the anti-Canadian slogans in French.)

In this video, we have an earnest liberal reporter going through an immigration office. The bureacracy is absurd, but the reporter must be taken seriously at all times. This is not the stuff of good comedy. If you can't make fun of yourself, you won't be able to make fun of anyone else.

What you have here is the equivalent of a Rush Limbaugh routine: those who agree with the host may find it amusing, but hardly anyone else will.

Wolverine

Posted by: Wolverine | April 19, 2008 8:04 PM

What is unChristian about opposing immigration? God doesn't call us to give special treatment to immigrants, only to show love and compassion. One can be at once compassionate and for the rule of law.

There is no fundamental right to free movement. Literally hundreds of millions of people suffer from poverty, but we don't have room for them all.

Immigration has always been supported by big business because it provides cheap labor, at the expense of native born or unionized workers. Who bears the heavy burden of immigration if not the least of us?

Posted by: J. P. | April 19, 2008 9:14 PM

"One can be at once compassionate and for the rule of law. There is no fundamental right to free movement."

This is exactly how some interpret Jesus' admonition to "love your enemy" - a Bible in one hand to give them the love of the Gospel before they die, if they will accept, and a gun in the other to dispatch them.

The UN Convention on Human Rights states that everyone has a right to leave his country and to return to it. We are a signatory to that and we used to be big on proclaiming it before the Soviet, and other dictatorships built on control of populations, which opposed that, fell.

If you say there is no right to free movement you are really not for freedom at all, just like those who built the Berlin Wall, who would agree heartily with you that "there is no fundamental freedom of movement."

We see this strain of political know-nothingism for what it really is - part of the authoritarian and totalitarian strain within mankind's original sin nature, and which unfortunately courses through American bloodstreams too, though it is profoundly unAmerican.

Rather than representing freedom, it is part of an earlier domination poltics.

It is unAmerican precisely because the nation was founded on principles of freedom by people who exercised the right to immigrate freely and without constraint as one of those essential principles. That is because America is "E Pluribus Unum," out of many, one, rather than staking its identity on a particular ethnic or cultural old world country, but instead as a philosophical political construct open to any who dare join in its challenge.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 19, 2008 9:29 PM

"Why don't we just swap the 20 million illegal aliens here that want to work, with the 20 million Americans who just don't feel like it. ST You and all your friends would probably like the warmer weather anyway"

Man, I just figure someone is making this over-the-top stuff up to make the immigrant-haters' opinions look even worse than they really are.

Folks, it's not fair to parody them this way. It makes them look like they have to resort to ad hominem attacks and gross exaggerations, instead of being able to make arguments on the merits.

Posted by: N.M. Rod | April 19, 2008 9:52 PM

J.P.: I think ST would agree that we have already lost our culture when we start using the language that we owe our freedom to Anglo heritage. The great experiment which is America is rooted in the preservation of human rights as inalienable and granted by God and not the Anglos or the veteran or the USA. (see what I mean, Armed2win? BTW-thanks for the blessing :))
On another note, has anyone heard updates on the Justice Revival?

Pastor Jeff

Posted by: Pastor Jeff Staples | April 19, 2008 10:24 PM

I am highly aware that Jesus did not speak English, was not Anglo-American, not even of European heritage.

Nor have the vast majority of those called by His name in human history.

I am His follower. I may find it most comfortable that the majority of people around me speak the same language I do and that the culture I grew up in may be the most pleasing and comfortable to me, but they are not things that He finds essential or even important at all. If I get hung up on those things, I am being spiritually distracted, and I'm squandering the time that God has allotted to me in this life.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 19, 2008 10:50 PM

"I can't think of a single meaningful contribution that my own German or Irish ancestors made to American culture."

What a truly ignorant statement. Michele Malkin writ small.

Posted by: N.M Rod | April 19, 2008 10:58 PM

A national policy of sealing off our nation in a way that no others have tried except totalitarian regimes while at the same time projecting unconquerable military force throughout the world is like rich people hiding in a gated community while they try to control and exploit their fellow citizens outside. This is precisely the effect the Founders feared from foreign entanglements and standing armies engaging in conquest, should we be tempted just as powers preceding our own were. What we do to others and our attitudes to them will be mirrored within our own nation, and we will similarly lose our own freedoms.

I reiterate that this is profoundly unAmerican. Simply look at the amount of government control and surveillance that is being promoted as necessary to implement it: national identity cards, travel control, permission to work through a central government agency and a vast secret "Homeland Security" internal security apparatus with surveillance and arrest powers forever relinquished beyond any oversight of the Congress or the courts.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 19, 2008 11:11 PM

ST - Hopefully you do not feel as though you are being singled out. If so, please accept my apologies, for that is not my intent.

Please note that I am not a new convert to anything. I am still AGAINST illegal immigration. I am pro-legal immigration. I have maintained that constant throughout this discussion. If I was read otherwise, then that is either the fault of the reader or my fault for not making it more clear. Again, more apologies...

Nevertheless, the care and love afforded to/shown to the immigrant (legal or otherwise) is or should be the domain of the church and charity - the individual, not the state.

It is the duty of the state to protect the citizenry, in part by enforcing laws and defining borders. The state, then, should enforce immigration laws, not only to protect the citizenry from illegal activities, but to protect the immigrant!

Beyond all that, it is incumbent upon us, as followers of Jesus, to treat all as He would. One can be a Bible believing and compassionate Christian and still regard the rule of law as important to proper societal function.

God bless...

Posted by: Armed2Win | April 20, 2008 12:38 AM

Armed2win

If you are going to respect the rule of law it is incumbent that the laws which rule, make sense.
As Pastor Jeff pointed out there is no law that allows for immigration to occur legally.
Our immigration system is broken.

I find it very frustrating that all those that focus on the rule of law seem to ignore that fact.

This is not poor immigrants fault. We let them do this for over a century. We made nonsensical laws that we either could not enforce or refused to enforce. They saw this and came. So would you.

Now we want to only blame the immigrant and the businesses who hire them. We want to feel both victimized and justified. Victimized for whatever bad things happen here, which we are in control of, and for which we are responsible, and justified for every stone we throw, every penalty we can think up, and every name we use to demean and dehumanize people who are in need.

If you want the rule of law, why don't you demand that the law be fixed and stop blaming poor people for doing what you would do if the tables were turned?

Posted by: wayne | April 20, 2008 12:39 PM

We can see however that the Mexican immigration problem is stable or declining through this decade.
(is there a cute little face symbol for sarcasm?)
The number of Asian Indians obtaining permanent residency since 1999 is up 30% over the 1990s while the number of Mexicans obtaining permanent residency since 1999 is down by 50%. To what can we attribute this oddity? Anyone?

PJ

Posted by: Pastor Jeff Staples | April 20, 2008 2:42 PM

Posted by: JamesMartin | April 19, 2008 3:29 PM

So now it is the undocumented immigrants' fault that Republicans have consistently blocked a national healthcare system. The next thing you're going to tell is that Josef Goebbels was a more honest press secretary to the 3rd Reich than the Clinton administration's Didi Meyers!

Decaf my friend -

A national system that is adm by the Gov't. Right, if they do to Health Care what they have done to SS - bring on the Kool Aid.

But you can't just have a system that covers anything and everything without some controls and personal responsibility.

I never brought Goebbels or Meyers into the discussion - but you can have Mr. G, I'll take Ms. M.

Blessings -
.

Posted by: Moderatelad | April 20, 2008 9:39 PM

I don't think we should allow illegal immigration because we've allowed it in the past. That's a weak argument.

It's nearly impossible for them to come legally because we don't have the infrastructure in place to support them. We are trying to limit the amount of immigrants -- and limit every country --to a flow that works best for all.

How can you count the number of illegal immigrants? We can't know how many are here because it's not like they register as illegals any where. We find them when they need other services -- like a hospital stay or get in a car accident, etc.

My brother-in-law cannot come into this country legally to stay. We know that. Do you suggest that he come any way?

I heard a radio program on the way in this morning, discussing how my state is to fund auto insurance for those who are not insured. (It's illegal to drive without insurance, but it still happens.)Illegals obviously cannot get car insurance, and niether can any number of working and non-working poor who simply cannot afford it.

If you think we should keep allowing illegal immigration, what are your suggestions for the real problems this presents?

Posted by: frankie | April 21, 2008 1:54 PM

frankie

By most estimates, 12 million are here already.
Infrastructure is here already also.
I do not know of anyone who says that because they have always come they should continue to do so.
What is said is that the laws need to be changed so as to reflect reality and be workable.

If your brother in law is starving or his children are in need, I would do all I could to help them if I were you. Does that mean cross the border illegally?
I do not know.

If they are in dire need and the system won't allow for legal entry would you insist your brother in law stay there and die? Would you then legally go to his funeral? Doesn't that seem wrong?
Crossing the border is not a walk in the park. People do not do so on a whim.

Insurance is not obtained because it is not affordable or it is unlawful to insure the undocumented. Change the law and you answer the later. Legal workers will still be liable to whatever the law demands. That is true for every American driver today and not all citizens are insured.

It is not true that we do not know them until they need services. Your example of the hospital is false since no hospital asks for a visa or a green card before treating someone in their ER.
We "know" them when we want our lawns mowed, our houses painted, our hotel room cleaned, or our hamburgers cooked.

Posted by: wayne | April 21, 2008 3:40 PM

I am in the health field, and we figure out who is legal or not because of insurance pretty quickly. They often tell us openly.

I know not all uninsured at illegals -- some are just plain irresponsible. However, currently, illegals cannot get insurance, but most have to have cars for work -- most everybody has to drive for work. That is why it is a problem.

How can we change the law for auto insurance without funding? It's not as simple as changing the law either.

I have no interest in exploiting anyone -- so I cut my own law. I think any business that pays anyone less than a living wage deserves to be shut down. Entry level jobs fit entry-level workers, and many legal workers have to start there too. My teenagers do -- I did. If you're suggesting that we hire illegals to clean hotel rooms, cook our hamburgers, etc. you're encouraging more lawlessness, since it's illegal to hire someone who is not authorized to work is the U.S.

Posted by: frankie | April 21, 2008 4:04 PM

Thank you Sojourners for continuing to put Jesus first in the Immigration Debate.

God bless,

Posted by: Quetzal | April 21, 2008 5:41 PM

Moderatelad wrote:
"I believe it is insulting to these people that followed the law to have people just walk in and flip us off and say 'here I am - entitle me!' (I know that they are not all that way but they are the exception, not the rule)"

Do you really mean to say here that illegal immigrants who arrive and demand "entitlements" are the rule?

I'm sorry, but the ladies cleaning my hotel room, the sweaty shirtless men in the yards of the McMansions in summer heat, the shy janitors with the rolling mop bucket...they seem to me to be working really, REALLY hard to support their families. These are not the images that the word "entitled" brings to mind.

Shall I repeat this so some more people have a chance of digesting it? There is NO LINE for unskilled laborers seeking work visas from Central/South America. Our laws shout out loud that we don't need their labor. But then our companies whisper in the dark that we do...

Posted by: sangerinde | April 21, 2008 6:28 PM

This looks like there are a lot of prejudices on both sides. Everyone cutting grass is illegal, for instance. I know lots of legal Americans who do landscaping for a living.

Funny -- my neighbor's wife went back to Mexico for about 6 months and then came back legally. I had no idea that she actually did the impossible in doing so. I applaud them both for doing the hard thing that was also the right thing -- and it's in both of their best interests.

Posted by: Connie | April 21, 2008 7:06 PM

Frankie: The reason you "don't get it" is you do not believe in the freedom of movement. The immigration laws are simply administrative (like much of the levitical law). There is no moral imperative wherein the rights of others are infringed. It is unjust for us subjugate human rights to administrative convenience and then cloak it in the guise of "homeland security". We are just as likely to home grow our terrorists as to import them.
I'm still waiting for analysis of actual statistics. ST, NM, A2W care to speculate?

Pastor Jeff

Posted by: Pastor Jeff Staples | April 21, 2008 8:51 PM

A libertarian professor of History at a major land-grant university said last year that if we want to have Free Trade, we also must accept open borders. How is it possible to have one without the other? We dump our crops on other countries, or subsidize them so that farmers in other countries get undercut, yet we want to keep our borders closed. If you're against "illegal" immigration, then write a letter to your Congressman and Senators and tell them that we should discontinue NAFTA, CAFTA and whatever other HAVETA...

Posted by: ando | April 21, 2008 10:18 PM

"Carlos Slim Helú is the world's second-richest man, with an estimated net worth of $60 billion. Perhaps he should invest in his own countrymen and women?"

Shouldn't Bill Gates do the same for his own countrymen, instead of outsourcing and offshoring jobs and benefits to enhance his own personal bottom line instead? The greedy actions of people of his ilk have everything to do with our economic malaise, and actual immigrants here none, which is why in tough economic times elites need scapegoats like immigrants, who have neither the right to be represented or many other basic rights others can use to defend themselves.

"there is a distinct and profound difference between illegal immigration and what Nazi Germany did. I can barely even place the two in the same sentence without twitching."

No one likes to admit their own evil propensities to original sin. Better to point the finger at other ethnic groups. Oh, those wicked Germans - the superior race of Americans are inherently incapable of evil against their fellow man! Except, the historical record is abysmal, from genocide of Indians to enslavement of blacks, all on a par with and setting precedents for others to build on.

Except... IBM automated the Holocaust and American CEO Tom Watson gave Hitler the Nazi salute, all for the almighty buck. America knowingly turned back the Jews Hitler allowed to leave, to the death camps, through its own draconian immigration laws that wouldn't accept those refugees on the ship. Not one allied bomb was ever dropped on the tracks to the death camps to disrupt the incinerations, although civilian German cities were carpet-bombed. Father Coughlin's anti-immigrant, anti-semitic radio broadcasts drew radio audiences of up to 45 million in the thirties.

It is enough to make one twitch. The death camps didn't happen all at once. The rhetoric that echoes our own anti-immigrant demonizing Tancredo speechifying came first. And then economic collapse was added to the list. Just what do you think we are on the cusp of now, 1929-like? It is incendiary. The way the Jews were talked about then is just the same way immigrants are talked about now, as inferior and drains on society.

"So, all conservatives are wealthy rich people?"

No, but most would probably like to be and they see the wealthy as saintly benefactors of mankind, failing to take into account what Jesus warned about the primal evil of greed, and wealth and its temptations as the most perilous ones to the soul.

Moreover, conservatism is intrinsically about resistance to change, about maintaining the status quo. To quote Buckley, "Standing athwart history, yelling 'Stop!'" Therefore, if any particular political or social situation is unjust, conservatism tends to defend it. It is almost always in defense of the current powers, and the interests of the financial elites, as it is now. Thus, the Founding Fathers were not conservatives - to a man, the conservatives in those days were loyalists to King George and aristocracy and all the trappings of a society that defended inherited wealth.

However, you are grossly mistaken if you think me a liberal. Neither do I subscribe to that failed ideology. Instead, I want to be taught and led by the Holy Spirit, using the example of Jesus' human life as to what God the Father wishes for us in growing closer to Him.

Posted by: Sojourner Truth | April 22, 2008 12:27 AM

Pastor Jeff --

No, I guess I don't support freedom of movement -- if it give aliens the same rights are citizens.

I couldn't really figure out what your statistics were saying was why I didn't comment on them earlier. (I'm not a big fan of stastics since the same set of statistics can be used to prove anything.)I can comment on Asian Indians coming in being up 30% since 1990 and Mexicans being down 30% since 1990. Why is that unfair? India is a poor country, way over-crowded, and they want to make a new start in America. Why is that a problem?

I remember reading an article about then by Mike Royco in Chicago about an Indian doctor working at Cook County Hospital with the poorest of the poor. She was deported because there weren't enough slots for Asian Indians to keep her. I think the outrage was because she was doing such a worthwhile thing.

I'm not saying she is more valuable than a less educated Mexican. Obviously, someone who learns the language and contributes to the economy is easier to assimilate into your country than someone you have to support and educate, even for a little while.

However, I don't see why asking people to come to our country legally is unloving. We have to balance how much money we spend with how much we have coming in -- unless you want to leave our grandchildren with nothing. I don't see why asking people to obey any of our laws is unloving.

Posted by: frankie | April 22, 2008 11:02 AM