Haik, you forgot Ruby Ridge and the kooky Montana Freemen. Janet Reno was a psychopath. I think there was more action against Americans who wanted to be left alone than against all the muslims who wanted to kill us during the Clinton years!
Yep, Janet was big on sieges alright. This picture is a disgrace and a black mark on America, as far as I'm concerned.
I think you will find most legal immigrants agree with your wife. Aside from the feeling of getting shafted by following the law, they will know far better than us what freedom means and why it needs to be protected.
Also, the head of the Minuteman project was a CPA and figured on the cost of a dual wall spaced 50-100yards apart for the entire lenth of the southern US border to be about 100 million dollars. That sounds like a good deal to me, considering the current alternative of illegal aliens, criminals and of course, the Mexican Army running drugs across the border!
One last thing. Davied Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidians, was not holed up in the compound before the ATF laid siege there. He and others regularly left to go into town, etc. They could have nabbed him anytime. Makes you wonder why the standoff and torching had to happen at all...

 

Haik, I forgot to mention this: I heard a follow up on Elian Gonzales on Glenn Beck (a conservative talk radio guy). He was twelve at the time and was being a good little communist. Fidel even went to his grade school graduation. Fidel says he considers Elian a good friend and Elian says he considers Fidel a father figure. Basically he is a propaganda piece for Fidel, compliments of Bill Clinton and Janet Reno.

 

100 Million would be a good deal if the project were possible, but it isn't. Just try to imagine how hard it would be to run a wall up the middle of Vermont over the mountains, etc. I've been to Big Bend National Park in Texas and looked out over the vista that is our Southern Border. When you look at all the mountains and the vast, vast landscape, you realize how rediculous the idea of a wall really is. National frontiers are just concepts. The only effective change I might see happening would be a serious crack-down on employers, but the government is too weak and conflicted to ever carry that out. And why can't we get it together to issue some form of national ID? They had it in the Soviet Union.

I agree that Waco was handled terribly. Even if they were holed-up, all they had to do was surround the place and wait until they ran out of food. There was no need for a great nation to behave so impatiently.

-but of course that example of impatience has now been blown out of the water when compared to our rush to invade Iraq.

 

Thanks for the update on Elian. I hope he's ok.

We should normalize relations with Cuba and end the travel ban there. It's totally hypocritical when compared to our stance on China, for example.

Also, as an American, I don't like to be told I can't go somewhere. That should be up to me.

 

Fearful people build walls. Confident people tear them down.

 

If Elian Gonzalez was homely and had a cleft palate, nobody would have cared.

 

That's not nice, but you raise an interesting issue. If you only watched Fox News, you would think every missing person was an attractive blonde female and that their stories were as consequential as war.

Look at how much time they spent on Natalie Holloway and Elizabeth Smart. It's totally disproportionate by any sane measure.

 

For God's sake, yes. What about the other several thousand missing people in America. Surely their stories are as interesting. They have to fill 24 hours and they expect us to go along with it.

 

George W Bush said: "Fearful people build walls. Confident people tear them down."
Give me a break. That kind of fluffy rhetoric is absurd.
Do you lock your door at night? I'll bet you do. Does that make you fearful? No, it makes you prudent.
Illegal immigration is a huge problem with obvious consequences and not so obvious ones, like resistant strains of tuberculosis, etc. Do a search for M13. It's a central american gang that is setting up operations here in the US, thanks to the lack of immigration enforcement.
What exactly are people who tear down walls confident of? There own demise?

 

Correction: The El Salvadorian gang is called MS13. Sorry about that.
Also, what are the people who build the walls fearful of? Probably disease and gang violence. Sounds logical.

 

"I know there are some in this world and our country who want to build walls between Mexico and the United States. I want to remind people, fearful people build walls. Confident people tear them down." -George W. Bush, September 6, 2001

I think that's the best thing he ever said.

Source:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010906-11.html

 

I didn't realize that was a Bush quote.
I'm conservative, which is why I disagree with most of what Bush says and does regarding domestic policy (he's good on the war on terror, but he shouldn't have backed down on the Dubai ports deal).
Let's face it, he's out there on a lot of things.
I stand by what I said. Build the wall! Mine the gap! Release the hounds!

 

"...he's good on the war on terror..."

Uh...yeah. Whatever. You agree with the invasion and occupation of Iraq?

Oh...we found Bin Laden?

Uh... reducing funding to clean up loose Soviet nukes was "good?"

Oh...we screen air cargo and shipping containers?

Uh... warrentless domestic wiretapping is ok? Rendition? torture?? for f*ck's sake?!!

Oh Bob. How can you say "he's good on the war on terror?"

The term "war on terror" itself is offensive. Few people in history have caused more terror than Bush.

 

I know you're all talking about immigration here but I can't help myself:
"Few people have caused more terror than Bush????"

Geez Haik. I usually pin you as someone a little more reasonable than that. Sure, the guy's a moron but he doesn't even RANK.

Are you honestly telling me that you actually believe that he is among these guys?

Alexander The Great
Caligula
Genghis Kahn
Cromwell
Hitler
Stalin
Mussolini
Mao
Pol Pot

Those are a FEW of the big ones. I wouldn't even put bush among the lesser offenders like Oliver Cromwell, Charles Taylor of Liberia, King Leopold of Belgium, Ho Chi Minh, Franco, Papadoc, Eidi Amin, Kim Jong Il, Milosevic....the list goes on and on.

Bush belongs to a select group of idiots: big headed, insular macho men who can't imagine the repercussions of their actions because their egos are blocking the view - like T. Roosevelt, Charles II of England, Napoleon maybe.

 

Thanks for that cheerful list. Now that you mention it, Bush reminds me a lot of Caligula.

I stand by what I said. I said "few people in history..." I meant relative to the number of people who have ever lived. Most people have never killed anybody, let alone 100,000 or so like Bush.

Painting Bush as some meat-head, macho man fratboy like Charles II is generous to a fault. He was a serial killer as governor of Texas. Now he's just a war-criminal monster.

That reminds me of another of his failings in the "war on terror"- Not paying attention to his PDBs. Not "good." Not "good" at all.

 

True, thousands of people have died under his regime - but he was ELECTED by a majority of Americans - so it's a little more complicated than just saying that "Bush is a serial killer."

 

Uh, five judges elected him, remember? As soon as we forget that we're f&%*ed.

 

Al Gore (Democrat) 50,999,897
48.38%

George W. Bush (Republican) 50,456,002
47.87%

Bush won a majorty of the electoral college in 2000. Gore won a plurality of votes nationally.

But T's point is well taken. Bush shouln't ever have come close. The fact that he did shows our society is sick.

In 2004, I voted for Kerry- but part of me was happy to see Bush gain a little legitimacy, just for the good of the country (although serious questions persist re: Ohio) and I also could see that Bush would get to lie in the bed he made in a second term.

By the way, I said he was a serial killer as governor of Texas. Man did he love to execute people.

 

HE executed people? Oh, man. I thought that a court of law did that.

Man, will you people ever get over 2000? He won the popular vote in 2004. Bush 62,040,606 (51%) - Kerry 59,028,109 (48%).

He won - get over it. Whether or not you like him, he is a legitimate president.

The Electoral College has a legitimate purpose. It makes it so the power is not so concentrated into the population centers. Vermont’s political power – as small as it is – would be reduced even further if we went with a popular system.

We are a union of states. The Electoral College system helps spread the power to all of the states, instead of just a handful with huge population centers. The small states still don’t have as much power as the large ones, but this was a compromise between those who wanted every state to be equal and those who wanted population to determine power.

 

Like I said, he lost in 2000 and each of us was ripped off because it. Get over it? God, I hope not. I hope we learned something. What is more precious than one's vote?

 

I agree with Charity about the Electoral College. It's a good system. Every thing she said about it is correct.

Will we ever get over 2000? Never!
To let go and accept the coup that happened in Florida would be unpatriotic.

Bush will never really be legitimate.

 

http://www.fairvote.org/?page=1004&articlemode=showspecific&showarticle=1297