Let me get this straight: you don't want to do anything about immigration? You don't trust the government to enforce the law, so you just want to throw up your hands and give up?

I throw up my hands and give up!

You have an alternative, Froblyx? A bill that creates a bad situation to rectify another bad situation is not a good solution here.

I think that the bill under discussion is the perfect bill for a democracy: a compromise that everybody hates but most people can live with. Democracy isn't about getting your way on everything; democracy requires that everybody learn to live with what is just barely acceptable, so that they can all get along together. You guys are insisting that this bill is terrible because it doesn't punish the illegals. I agree, that's not good. But the people on the left hate it because it is too harsh, in their view, on immigration. Now, how are you going to resolve this difference of opinion? Start shooting at each other? You have to ask yourself, can I live with this bill? Does it get me anything? Yes, it definitely gets you something: better policing, better fencing, and more agents. That's good, and you know it. Does it have bad things? Well, yes, from your point of view it does. But this bill represents the best compromise you are going to get. After 2008, it can only get worse. So, there are just two questions to ask:

1. Does it offer anything of value?
2. Can you live with the bad parts?

If the answer to both questions is yes, then you should support it. If the answer to the second question is no, then you better prepare yourself for losing in the long run. Because you can't have what you want.

Throughout the history of the United States, negotiations have always been the first step to a better future. Both the liberals and conservatives need to compromise and work together in order to make this work. First steps, no matter how small, NEED to be taken so that the immigration can be solved in the near future.

Froblyx,
You'd have a point except for being wrong. Did you not notice the lawmaker in the post mentioning that the things you promise the Right didn't materialize last time? What's the saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

Anyway, my solution is simple: ignore what people want and do what makes sense. By the way, my view of that is different from Eric's, but that's really neither here nor there. I hate democracy, and I fear that is what we are getting, rather than a constitutional republic run by democratically-elected representatives of the people.

I firmly believe that the system would work if we had better men in office, or more respect for the spirit of the founding fathers, or even if we scrapped the seventeenth amendment. They'd look at the issue, decide on a solution, and it would either work and they'd be re-elected, or it wouldn't, and they'd be thrown out, which is the way the system is supposed to work.

Instead, because of the spineless men in Washington and the constant barrage of opinion polls we have, we are greeted with little more than mob rule wedded to the excesses of big government.

Finally, I have to wonder how you come to the conclusion that if this deal is not accepted, the Right isn't going to get anything. From everything I've seen, right-wingers are having more children and low population density areas are having a population boom as people drift away from cities in increasing number; but, because of the size of the country, the population density in these areas isn't increasing. Both items tend to suggest that the right is going to have more power in the future, to my mind.

This is not another typical left-right-divide type of issue, Froblyx. The vast majority of Americans (including leftists) don't want mass immigration, or at least that's the impression we can sift from hundreds of opinion polls returning fairly consistent results over several dozen years. Very few outside the extreme fringe you characterize vaguely as the left oppose this bill on the grounds that it's too harsh. The only place where the left is uniformly pro-immigration is inside the Beltway.

Jon, my reference to the prospects for the right wing applies only to the 2008 elections, which most tea-leaf readers see as giving even more power to the Democrats.

As to the matter of whether the law will be implemented, well, that's a matter of trusting the government. I admit that the government of the last few years hasn't done much to instill trust, but if you don't think the government is going to do anything, why do you even care about this bill?

This is not another typical left-right-divide type of issue, Froblyx.

I agree. The left and the right have different concerns about this bill, though. The right seems more concerned than the left with punishing illegals; the left seems more concerned than the right with providing immigrants with legal protections. Everybody has their own axe to grind. Which is why compromise is necessary.

...it would create a vast new class of people legally entitled to taxpayers' assistance.
A great many subsidized services are already available to illegals: free health care, at ER's and hospitals not yet closed; free education, in Spanish no less; low rent housing.
And you know that children born in this country of illegals are citizens entitled to those government goodies anyway.

If you intend to live in California in the future, you would be wise to learn Spanish. And to that end, the banks, phone companies, and most retail stores like Wal-Mart are here to help you in your day to day grammar lessons.

Diga: Si, hablemos Espanol!
See how easy that is?

Frank,
That's an argument against welfare, not immigrants.