The Second Ammendment Lobby and Police Safety

[AmericanPride]

Did you watch the video? It's hard to see how you came to that conclusion if you watched the video.

I did; my comments were in response to your statement about the "we need to get rid of the Democratic Communist Party Propaganda technique of Hyphenated Americans". So really the question is how does the concept of a multi-lingual, multi-religious, multi-racial American capture the linguistic and intellectual space in the American public?

Which is exactly the condition that many politicians are trying to create with the so called immigration policy. The American Government is taking care of and protecting the rights and livelihoods of a foreign population at the expense of the American population! The policies have and will continue to create massive economic dislocations, a recipe for long term disaster IMO.

This is a myth on many levels.

(1) The Obama administration has deported illegal immigrants at a record pace, exceeding even the Bush administration. I think this has less to do with Obama's policies and more to do with the improved effectiveness of the Department of Homeland Security. For a free country, the US has a very restrictive immigration policy. And the reason why the population of illegal migrants is so high is because the "supply" of legal entry is intentionally significantly lower than the demand. Whatever advantages or protections provided to this population (which isn't much), this is not at the expense of the American public.

(2) The "massive economic dislocations" in the United States over the last, say, 30-40 years have very little to do with immigration. The causes of the transformation of the American economy are: (1) financialization, (2) transition from a rural society to an urban one with rapid urbanization, (3) transformation from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge-service one integrated in a globalizing economy (not to mention the regular shocks to the economy through the boom and busts cycles that hit low income communities the hardest). Low-skilled migrants with no legal access to the economy cannot and do not succeed in a system that privileges wealth, education, and idea generation. If Americans are so desperate as to be fearful of losing positions in the janitorial, home improvement, and farm-hand sectors to immigrants, then we really need to reassess how our education and economic systems are shaping the opportunities of Americans.

So, I think the solution is two-fold: (1) expand, not minimize or criminalize, immigration opportunities to integrate migrants (and to enable greater government accountability of the population), which will lower costs and increases revenues (2) more proactive federal programs to rebuild a crumbling economy given the failure of state and local governments to fulfill the most basic functions of governance. What the 2008 recession really demonstrated was the fragility of local governments - this is the level of government with the most interaction with the population but also the least amount of resources to deal with the problems facing a modern society. This was the level of government most devestated by the recession and it's the level of government that requires the most federal and state assistance. Failure at this level of government is the greatest risk to American security and tranquility.