Yes, I doubt you will shut up until it is done, but it is not going to happen. What the professor seems to be communicating is that this is a problem that won't stop and rather than coldly bitching about it and making snide remarks, all the while clinging to an ideal that obviously is not so cut and dry, we should view this problem from a more pragmatic sense and consider other options before we further remove ourselves from the global community.
Easy analogies like, "But you wouldn't start trying to clean up your flooded house BEFORE you stop the flow of water, would you?" are just that, easy and they fail to fully address the issue with their over simplification. Everything is changing and we need to evolve. The last thing we need is a bunch of heavily armed yahoos standing at the border.
But I know you'll disagree, challenge and raise your voice for the principals of this country... [yawn]... blah, well, we'll always disagree and I’ll continue to get riled by these posts. Maybe not. I think I'm done.
Puke away.
Thanks, as always, for adding a polar opposite opinion to the debate. When I manage to piss you off, I know I've gotten my point across. 
In my defense, I'd agree with you about the snarkiness, etc., if that was all I ever did...it's just a tool I pull out sometimes. Everyone needs a good bitch every now and then, but for me it's in addition to many hours spent attending protests and rallies, writing to all my government representatives, and researching current events and history to continue the lifelong journey of rumination and reflection.
That said, I will agree with you that there is no easy fix to the multi-faceted problem of illegal immigration. There is no one thing we can do to make it better, but I will cheer like hell when I see a glimmer of hope that even one piece of the puzzle might see the light of day at the hands of our conveniently blind politicians.
And while the solution is not simple, principals are by nature. Principals are what they are -- black or white, yes or no -- and they are necessary to affect change of any value. I'm saddened by the fact that they make you yawn.
I think what really bothers me about this type of pro illegal immigration argument is that it assumes that if a person does not want to flood his or her country with cheap labor, he or she must be a racist.
I am not a racist, but I do believe that too much of a good thing is bad.
We must decide what type of society that we live in. Do we want a society which has 5 people for every one job? Where does immigration end? How far south shall we go? Can we absorb all of the poor in the Americas?
Immigration is killing our once well paying industries. Constuction workers, butchers, landscapers, just to name a few, are threatened.
The proponents of open borders never address this issue. They always say that these are jobs that Americans do not want. American's do not want these jobs because the market is flooded with people who will work for $3.00 an hour. Americans cannot live on that.
Finally, I thought that NAFTA was supposed to boost the Mexican economy to middle class. We were sold a lie then, and are being sold a lie now.
Give em hell!!!
The principals do not make me yawn, invoking them again and again just bothers me because I seriously think we all need to evolve in our thinking if anything real and tangible will ever happen. The so-called principals are important but the rigid adherence to them to the exclusion of any other idea starts to get old and depressing.
Immigration is a problem that needs to be addressed in more creative ways, and really, larger problems loom. I always see the right focus on this issue to the near exclusion of ones that upset me considerably more. Like my ever dwindling civil liberties and a pointless war that seems to be without end, lack of funding for the arts or education while a military budget bloats justified by our ongoing enemy of the month club-- none of which have anything much to do with immigration. Rarely do I see anything on this blog or anywhere else of a similar type run by the "ridiculous right" (my catch phrase in retaliation for the "loony left") that mentions the international phone calls that were tapped, the discovery of a torture prison in Egypt, or anything else that makes our representatives look like the real problem. No, let's focus on other problems and blame the people who-- while they do break the law, yes-- come here because they are doing what they can to survive. I like that you mention the greedy companies that support because they larger entities such as these are the problem. One could argue entrapment on behalf of the undocumented workers. And really, wouldn't any of us do the same if we were starving? Empathy folks...
As for the accusation that members of the right are racist, I defer to David Cross:
"I'm not saying all republicans are racist, sexist, homophobes, no not at all. Just the people they choose to elect into office are."
Getting rid of borders doesn't solve the problem Zombie. It actually makes it worse for everybody.
Last time I checked Mexico was a sovereign country, while I feel deeply for the poor folks in that country the solution is not for them to pour over our borders.
The need to fix their loose shit at home. One of our largest policy blunders in the last twenty years was bailing Mexico out. We should have let them go down, crossed our fingers, and hoped like hell a representative government would arise out of the ashes.
You do know their torturing illegal immigrants coming into Mexico?
As to your "more important issues". I support the wire-tapping as I understand it. Right leaning blogs are all over this, it's just not our thrust. Torture in Egypt, tell you what, when they start torturing humans I'll get upset. So long as it's terrorist scum, shit, I'd do it myself. It seems amidst the vast number of brains arrayed on the left there is also a strange amnesia to the reality of terrorists and terrorism.
In my book these are seriously bad folks and we need to do whatever it takes to beat them.
Oh wait, let me guess, it's all America's fault. If we would only dialogue with the terrorists it would be all good, right?
The reason we focus on this issue to the exclusion of the things YOU feel are more important is because we are concerned that there might not be a country to defend if we don't.
"The principals do not make me yawn, invoking them again and again just bothers me because I seriously think we all need to evolve in our thinking if anything real and tangible will ever happen. The so-called principals are important but the rigid adherence to them to the exclusion of any other idea starts to get old and depressing."
I guess we really are coming at this and every issue from very different perspectives. I "invoke my principals" every single time I make a decision because, yes, they are important.
I have zero problem with "evolving" the solution (although I picayunishly prefer the word "adapting") to the issues at hand, but it must include NOT losing site of the principals. They ARE rigid, or they are of no value.
What really frightens me is people who want major policy decisions to be based on something OTHER than principals...like "feelings."
"I just don't feel we should punish these people whose first act upon entering our country was to break our laws. They just want a better life."
Yeah, well, the guy who breaks into my house to steal my TV is trying to make his life better, too. But I sure don't FEEL like his "punishment" should be to offer him my stereo as well.
You see, the wire tappings were done without court order, which makes it ILLEGAL, to use your favorite word, and according to what I have so often seen here, that means Bush broke the law and therefore it seems a contradiction to not oppose this. As for the torture camps, again, not ethical, legal or any better than any terrorist act. Can't support it. I think a dialogue is obviously not the answer but neither are secret torture prisons. This is how I see my country sliding an dI fear the damage will be irreversible.
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