you ask good questions. what do you suggest or envision? Certainly not a wide open border or open citizenship to anyone who sets foot. I'll be the first to say theres no easy solution or any solution that pleases everyone, but I take exception to periodically granting amnesty to everyone lucky enough to be here on payday.

what is it you find so puzzling?

Have you ever heard of the No-Fly List? Are you aware that it's absurdly easy to be almost arbitrarily put on this List, and next to impossible to get yourself off?

The draconian measures you seem to view as at least a crease in the sand are happenening.

Perhaps on a smaller scale than a police state, but they've begun nonetheless. And the people who put them in place, and many who would come into power after them, would not stop at requiring you to have your papers on you at all times.


(And far worse, I'm afraid)

Perhaps I am suffering from the frog in the kettle syndrome. Goodness knows most of society is in areas from smoking bans to speech codes.

We all have those things we are most concerned about. I listed those two because of issues of private property rights and freedom of speech where I feel the temperature of the water rise with every degree.

I'm with Kevy Baby on rights vs privileges.

Oh, and see ... I completely disagree about rights and privileges. I don't believe rights are absolute, but neither are things like driving or flying "privileges."

Cars exist. If I can demonstrate an ability to drive one safely, I have a right to drive one. A government should deny me a license based on my lack of driving proficiency, not - say - on the color of my skin or my political activities.

Similarly, the "right" to fly. It's a service available in the common marketplace. United Airlines has the right to deny me, but the U.S. government does not. I also have the right to shop at Vons. The right to use a cell phone. The right to do all sorts of things that don't harm others. That's called freedom. And it's not limited to things specifically mentioned by name in the U.S. Constitution.

I completely agree. The rights listed in the Constitution are not a specific enumeration of all rights that exist.

And I can see your point on the government denying someone the "right" to fly vs. a private entity refusing service to you. With that in mind, there was the recent story of a group of Imams that were flying on some airline, and several passengers were nervous because the men had been supposedly uttering antiAmerican phrases during boarding (or some such thing - I don't exactly recall the details). Did that airline act withint their rights as a private entity in removing those men from the flight? Or should their lawsuit be permitted to procede because of discrimination?

With what you have said about rights....you are a gun control supporter if I recall. If I own a fully automatic weapon, how has that harmed anyone? Even if the right to bear arms was just directed at a well regulated militia (and I do not subscribe to that interpretation), do I not have the right to own that fully automatic weapon? I haven't harmed anyone in the simple ownership, yet it has been deemed by society that I cannot have it. We can go through all the arguments of "what do you need that for, blah, blah, blah", but the point remains.

Certain limitations have been placed on individual rights for the (supposed) benefit to society. Insert the law you most disagree with here, whether that is drug usage or prostitution orr selling ones body parts.

I don't see a no fly list as different than any of those other things....something that society has deemed acceptable even though it is a curtailing of what an individual can do at any specific time.

Back to immigration, it seems to me the drivers are economic. In poorer countries there is a need for jobs, in richer countries there is a need for cheap labor. Either we find a way to bring in cheap labor (who maybe have a path to becoming part of the middle class citizenry) or we export the jobs. If we're strict on both then it seems we ultimately solve our immigration problem by sabotaging our own economy and becoming poorer and less desirable a destination.

:) Very good point. I suppose we should not worry too much about this problem unti it ceases to become a problem:)

Except that the work that the illegals do is legal necessary work. The majority of abused drugs can't be sold by pharmacists even with a prescription. I suppose if recreational drugs were ever legalized, there would still be a street trade devoted to undercutting the prices passed down by the drug companies to the pharmacists. Then you'd hear the drug companies complain about the street dealers the way the white and black working class complain about the Latinos.

So says the Ninth Amendment, but I don't think the Supreme Court has ever tried to figure out what that means.

When are we having a Strangler Lewis meet?