[Superman]

Nice try Len, but it doesn't pass the "straight face test." Just because Dubya cannot clamp down on illegal immigration without stepping on his own dick does not mean the Republican party is not opposed to it. It is similarly untrue to assert that unions are the biggest anti-illegals group in the country. Yes, they oppose illegal bahavior of many kinds like veryone else, but unions are fighting outsourcing not immigration. They tend to favor protectionist stuff (like opposing NAFTA, for example), but they are certainly not anti-immigration. It is certainly amusing to watch the Republican party's schizophrenic approach to this issue. That party has to hate immigration, but encourage it.

The thread-starting story is amusing and uplifting too. It certainly flies in the face of some folks' theories that we become more conservative as we get older and smarter. I like to think selfish people are simply unaware of how the world works, how societies operate, how families operate, etc. I know that's naive, but the alternative is to believe they do understand how things work, and are hoping to take advantage of others. Raising the Mexican standard of living would reduce the motivation to immigrate, but we'd have to make some sacrifice in order to accomplish this. It would be a kind of charity. And it would be the right thing to do. But then.....

Where would we get the cheap, hard-working labor that our economic system feeds from? Good luck with your conservative political leanings on this one. It's easy to defend from a selfish economic perspective, but hard to justify from a human standpoint.