So Powell tends to get the politics wrong and Rumsfeld tends to get the strategic planning wrong?
Hmmm… maybe they should switch jobs…

With each other, I mean.

My sense from glancing thru Woodward’s book is that GWB never has any doubts.

This is the same man who looked into Putin’s eyes, have seen Putin’s soul and declared him a friend and ally.

I think it is very interesting how Bush & Co. are now desperately trying to “mobilize” the GOP base. The word that Bush is in real trouble with conservatives has come from sources like Robert Novak and others. Novak’s column earlier this week failed however to touch Bush’s real trouble with his base—his continuing push for amnesty for illegals (through minions like Rep. Chris Cannon) and his foolish and completely unecessary apologies to the Arab world for Abu Ghraib, not to mention his lack of angst expressed over MASS gay marriages.

I predicted years ago that the RINOs would try to energize the base in the last months before the election, but that this would fail due to the enormity of negatives surrounding Bush. Abu Ghraib has given the left “the red meat” issue it has been looking for, with the lack of WMD still being kicked about. I see these two issues as hurting Bush, not only from the “attack dog” left but through the disgust from his own base. After all, how many mistakes can people forgive a leader or leaders for before they begin to lose confidence in them? I have absolutely no confidence in Bush, except for the knowledge that he will be pushing amnesty for illegals next year, if re-elected.

It is truly unspeakable that President Bush is attempting to allow any one of 6 billion people to have open-ended claims on American jobs. Treason, I think, is the word I am looking for, but that may be a little strong.

Anyway, you chaps had better read up on a fellow by the name of John Howard. In 2001, John Howard fought an election campaign against illegal immigration. He was opposed stridently by the left-liberal pro-mass immigration media. However, he won comfortably.

John Howard is of course the Prime Minister of my country, Australia. He, unlike his mate Bush, actually takes a stand against the mass-immigration bleeding hearts. Since 2001, not one single boatload of “refugees” has made it to Australia. We enforce our borders, even though they are so damned long, and actually manage to turn around every single boat that attempts to make onshore. They are either sent back where they came, or deposited on one of the Pacific Isles.

It doesn’t take much to enforce your borders. Just a few thousand police, and the support of the majority of people. Given that the majority of people support border-control anyway, it can’t be such a big ask.

Unfortunately for America, Bush IS a liberal, and has no intention of defending America’s territorial integrity.

Well said, Mr. Edwards! Spoken like a true American!

Illegal immigration is “big business” to large companies, hotel, restaurants and small businesses here in California and in most other states. I have heard liberals and leftists say, “If we send them back and enforce the Southern Border, hotels and restaurants here will go out of business as there won;t be any Americans willing to take those low-paying jobs!” They DO have a point, but I believe they overstate it. There needs to be AN ORDERLY PROCESS OF IMMIGRATION LEGAL IMMIGRATION—where the immigrant’s background is checked and his/her health is checked to keep TB and other diseases and terrorists from coming in. There surely would be millions “acceptable” aliens we could bring in—again as in the Bracero Program, they would have to return home after a time and re-apply to come back in. Again, AN ORDERLY PROCESS just as it once was. How we got away from checking their health and criminal background is beyond me. So, the argument that hotels and restaurants would fold is hogwash. There are plenty of legal immigrant who could fill that void until the illegals applying properly for work visas could be checked.

And no “matricula” cards allowed or needed!

Actually, Mr. Levin, if all welfare were abolished - and I mean every single form of it - the unwilling Americans would be all too happy to take the jobs. It is utterly againist the constitution, as it was written, for the government to be involved in alms for the poor. I also expect that liberal churches who now seem to have endless time and funds available to advance leftism might actually be shamed into getting their hands dirty in helping the poor, which would leave them less time and money for wreaking havoc on society.

If we take Samuel P. Huntington’s recent article, the estimates for illegal immigrants in America range between 8 and 10 million.

I’ll take the mid-figure - 9 million - and divide by fifteen. That comes to 600,000. What is the significance of this figure? Well, America’s population is roughly fifteen times bigger than Australia’s. As there are 10 million people officially employed in Australia, 600,000 people would mean that our labour supply would increase by 6%.

Depending on the elasticity of labour demand, this points to a sizable real wage reduction.
Now as a higher labour supply lowers wages (by the by, in Australia real wages are increasing by around 2% a year; I hear they are falling in America) you would expect the opposite to occur if labour supply fell.

Hence this statement is economic nonsense:

“If we send them back and enforce the Southern Border, hotels and restaurants here will go out of business as there won;t be any Americans willing to take those low-paying jobs!”

I hope Mr Levin rebutted this argument effectively when it was put to him. The restaurants won’t go out of business. Due to marginal productivity they’ll take on less staff at higher wages. If the illegals are booted out of America, then those staff will be Americans.

These left-liberals are dishonest shills who are sacrificing their egalitarian beliefs on the alter of multiculturalism.

Mr. Edwards states his case marvelously. I am assuming his Australian illegal figures are correct.

However, his taking “9 million illegals in the U.S.” is I believe a mistake. The figure is actually more than double that. I recommend he contact Allan Wall or Joe Guzzardi at vdare.com, two individuals whom know much better about figures than I do. The figures I have seen are closer to 30 million! All you have to do—if you live in Arizona or California, is look around you! There are illegals EVERYWHERE!! It’s really unbelievable. And I am including Asian, Middle Eastern illegals as well, not solely Mexicans. The scary thing is no one really knows.

I was in the restaurant/hotel/country club business for many years, and I would agree that if all illegals were sent packing, these facilities would have to manage—they wouldn’t have any choice. Again, as I said in my May 23, 9:05 post, LEGAL immigrants would galdly take many of those jobs—it’s not like we are not allowing LEGAL immigration!

I think “outsourcing”, the scourge of the RINOs and “economic conservatives”, is what the Feds need to stop dead in its tracks. I know libertarians and many fellow conservatives will beat on me for saying this, but it is simply UN-AMERICAN allowing U.S. companies to offshore it’s work force for services rendered in the U.S., as Dell Computer has in India. Whether companies should have a right to do anything they want at the expense of the U.S. economy and workers is where I part company with other conservatives. An Act of some kind is needed—with Presidential leadership behind it—to stop it cold. As for these companies then shipping their now-foreign-made products back to the U.S. for sale, we could stop that cold, too. But there’s too much money at stake, and none of the two running for president would sign such a bill or get behind such an Act. Yes, I’m talking tariffs—BIG ones on “American” companies acting anything but in this country’s interest. Flying in foreign workers from India, etc. is another very similar issue—the H-1B Visa.

The figure of 30 million illegal aliens in the USA seems absurd. That is more than 10% of the population. I have been reading VDare.com for quite a while. Any references?

I think the 30 million figure refers to the total number of immigrants which includes illegals, people here under any number of visa and asylum programs, and those given citizenship under the 1965 revision of the immigration laws. I’ve also seen this total figure given as 40 million, which is fairly close to the number of abortions since 1973.

I believe Mr Levin may have slightly misunderstood my posting. In any case, I’ll restate my core argument.

The 600,000 “figure” for illegal immigrants in Australia was not in fact the number of illegal immigrants we have here. The real number is reputed to be closer to 50,000.

What I did was make a ratio out of the population of America to Australia, which is 15:1. I read Samuel Huntington’s recent article, and he believes the number of illegals in America is between 8 and 10 million.

So taking 9 million and dividing by 15 gives me 600,000. If Australia had proportionally as many illegals as America, we’d have 600,000 rather than around 50,000 (mostly European visa-dodgers anyway). Get my drift? In other words we are enforcing our territorial sovereignty much more effectively than America.

Thus real wages are rising in Australia as blue collar Australians have far less pressure put on them by illegals.

The sad thing is, Bush could obliterate the Democrats on illegal immigration.

I’ll tell you all a story. John Howard destroyed the Labor Party (the Labor Party are really the liberal party, while Howard’s Liberal Party are in fact the conservatives!) in the 2001 election, not because Labor supported an Amnesty. Not because Labor supported in principle the idea that “asylum seekers” could pay their way into the country and then tie up the courts. Not because Labor opposed turning around the boats and sending them back. It was because Labor were marginally less enthusiastic about the whole thing!

I bet you guys just wish you could wedge the Democrats so effectively that opposition to illegal immigration ALONE isn’t enough, the intensity of their opposition (or lack thereof) will be counted against them!

Say, everyone tells me the Republican Party is the most right wing party in the world. So how come they can’t even beat the Democrats on issues where they carry the support of over 2/3 of Americans????

The Republicans can’t beat the Democrats on Affirmative Action, gay marriage, immigration and law and order and they are even openly adopting Democratic fiscal policies!

George McGovern must be laughing his head off.

Mr. Edwards,

Those who run the Republican Party today (GW Bush, Karl Rove, Hastert, Frist, et al.) cannot beat the Democrats on affirmative action, homosexual “marriage,” immigration and law and order because in truth they don’t really want to; their views of these matters are very little different from Democrats’. They maintain fig-leaves of fiscal sanity (only relative to Democrats, and as Mr. Edwards notes that is slipping as President Bush exceeds the profligacy of the only real Texan to occupy the White House: Lyndon Johnson) and opposition to abortion.

The fact that a liberal party like today’s Republicans is widely perceived as the “most right wing party in the world” is a huge problem for real conservatives. That is why a lot of VFR regulars want the Republicans to lose. A lot of conservative vote-power is squandered keeping those useless liberals in power, out of fear of the fangs-bared Leftists of the Democratic Party. Republicans are more dangerous to conservatism than Democrats. They are the greater obstacle to the rise of a conservative political party in the United States.

As for illegal aliens, the putatively reliable figures I have seen put the number (in 2000; no doubt there are many more now) at somewhere between 8 and 14 million. The gross margin of error in those figures is indicator enough of what a serious problem illegal squatting is. From what I read, and what I see every day, I have to believe the true number is well over 14 million, although I don’t know what it is. Adding to the confusion is the way many illegal aliens, especially Mexicans, flow in and out of the United States essentially at their convenience. Whatever the true number, America’s immigration problem is not confined to illegal aliens by any means.

If the number of illegal aliens is Australia is only 50,000 (granted: one is too many), then the RAN and whoever else guards Australia’s shores should have a huge pay raise. The demographic pressure from Asia hanging over Australia is immense. We should learn from them! HRS

Mr. Edwards, the Republican party in the USA is a very strange animal. If you talk to the folks who make up the majority of its voters, who can be characterized as white, middle class, Evangelical Christians - you might get the idea that Republicans are conservatives. The sad truth is that this core base is quite disorganized and even suffers from a certain amount of infighting on some issues. Most of their time, energy, and money is spent providing for their families in an increasingly unstable job market. The programmers and other people in high-tech fields whose future seemed secure a decade ago can have their job outsourced or find themselves replaced by an H1-B visa holder (basically a form of indentured servitude, by the way) at any time. They have little power in terms of financial or organizational clout that can influence political parties, but the numbers to be loyal foot soldiers.

The folks who actually call the shots in the Republican Party, George W. Bush being the perfect example, are quite happy to have these poor saps vote for them and even occaisionally spout conservative sounding rhetoric to energize and distract the foot soldiers. The leadership comes from the ranks of the corporate elite, and takes its marching orders from that select group, which has become progressively more liberal over the past 40 years. Thus, when you look at the list of individuals and organizations who filed amicus briefs in favor of racial preferences last year (the Grutter case), there is an amazing number of Fortune 500 companies, CEOs, retired generals, and other supposed “conservtives” in addition to the usual gang of Marxists and leftists. Likewise, despite overwhelming opposition to open borders among the base and even the general population, the Republican ruling class resolutely refuses to even consider the issue - even to the point of resorting to the long-standing leftist tactic of labeling any such opposition as “racist.”

George W. Bush and the corporatist elite he represents are liberal to the core. That’s why we have open borders, gay marriage, racial preferences and the entire left-liberal agenda in place with no effective opposition. Bush, Rove and Co. would much prefer to pander to every leftist in the media (fellow members of the ruling caste) than actually do anything to oppose the ongoing war against America’s traditional majority. Despite all of the patriotic rhetoric, the actions of this group betray a globalist, leftist agenda that is fundamentally treasonous to both the Constitiutional republic and to the traditional majority. The mystery for me is the total hatred expressed by leftists for Bush and his companions, who’ve implemented 90 percent of what leftists want. Perhaps the hard left is furious with jealousy that the corporatist types are the ones actually implementing the “new world order” and simultaneously making buckets of money for themselves while leaving them out in the cold of their academic ivory towers.

My take on corporation Republicans is that they act in their (myopically) perceived self-interest, and no leftism needs to be inferred to explain their actions. They perceive self-interest in cheap immigrant labor; liberal ideals are hardly needed to explain this position.

As to the amicus briefs in Grutter, I explained (in a thread I have searched for in vain) that corporate executives were between a rock and a hard place here. Existing precedent says that any company accused of discriminatory hiring practices is assumed guilty if it can be established that their work force is not racially reflective of the surrounding population. At that point, they must prove their innocence. (So much for the Anglo-American legal heritage.) Without affirmative action being legal, they would be subject to constant lawsuits, no matter what they do.

As someone who has known a number of corporate executives fairly well (I count three billionaires among my personal acquaintances, though I haven’t seen any of them in a few years) it is my experience that both what Mr. Coleman is saying and what Carl is saying are true. CEO’s and other executives are not, in general, a very philosophically reflective caste; and the caste pursues its narrowly perceived self-interest to the exclusion of most other concerns.

However, there are two places where it is impossible for the caste to avoid resting on some deeper philosophy: 1) when it comes to deciding what to do with all of that money to “give back to the community”, and 2) when there is a personal crisis that demands it. I think that here the responses remain unreflective, but that they generally default to a typical liberal modernism (in part *because* of the lack of reflection).

Even a supposedly deeply reflective and maverick corporate CEO like T.J. Rodgers is really just an unreflective classical liberal industrialist.

So I don’t think that when it comes to Carl’s perception and Mr. Coleman’s that we have an either/or situation. I think it is both/and.

Clark Coleman wanted “evidence” to support my statement of “…close to 30 million illegals in the U.S.”, and I still haven’t found one.

However, Joe Guzzardi of vdare.com (who among many others, ran against Ahnold in the Recall here) stated to me this morning, “I think the stated figure of 8-12 million is low, too.” He further stated that “…when we are
outside our own circle, the conventional wisdom is to use conservative figures.” I don’t think he’d mind my quoting him here.

This is not the end of my search, by any means. Of course, we’ll never know who many really are here, so the point can be argued ad infinitum. Census figures don’t help because so many have blended in with the population and illegals have been afraid to come forward to be counted. One easy way to count them in the restaurant and hotel business, is to add up all the hotels and restaurants in the country and divide by 3, 4 or 5. That’s right. I believe that up to 25% or more of these institutions’ employees and contracted out help are illegals. It used to be the janitors and the kitchen help, only. Now it’s waiters, busboys, gardeners, leaf blowers, etc.

I will stand by my figures of 28-30 million until proven otherwise.

Mssrs. Coleman and Matt make very good points about corporate leaders behaving according to a “narrowly perceived self-interest to the exclusion of most other concerns.” It no doubt explains many cases of corporate lobbying.

While explaining many things, it still does not explain the support of racial preferences. The no-win legal situation described by Mr. Coleman came about as a result of the 1991 Civil Rights law. which, like Grutter, enjoyed considerable support from large corporations and was passed thanks to Republicans like Dole and Bush 41 jumping on the bandwagon.

This legislation was created to specifically overrule a series of Supreme Court decisions from the 1980s that had placed the burden of proof upon the plaintiff or the government in racial preference litigation. How can corporate support for this be explained as a narriow self interest? In effect, they put themselves between the rock and the hard place. An underlying liberalism and white guilt would appear to be the only motivation.

I don’t have time to do the legal research, but I believe that the legal dilemma that corporations face preceded the 1991 Civil Rights Act. The burden of proof has been falling on corporations in various ways since at least the Duke Power case.

Mr. Coleman is right; in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971), a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court, with Republican appointee Burger, C.J., writing for the Court, reversed the burden of proof and stood the Civil Rights Act of 1964 on its head. Oddly, Brennan, J., the most creative “Living Constitutionalist” of them all, took no part in the decision. American executives have been grovelling before the race racketeers and feministas ever since.

Their support of the cultural Left’s agenda is partly self-preservation, a little bit conviction and mostly simple conformism. As Matt and others say, they are not a very reflective bunch. Don’t underestimate conformism and reaction to social pressure. Many of our corporate élite are graduates of our rotting élite universities (college, business school, law school…). Since the mid-1960s, their alumni magazines, reunions, gatherings and other connections with alma mater have bombarded them with the dogma of the Left, including the gospel of Inclusion ad Infinitum and the anti-white, anti-male discrimination it requires. Few of our business leaders are inclined to question guidance from such seemingly authoritative sources. Worship of “experts” is far too ingrained in the technocratic American’s psyche.

On another topic, Mr. Levin’s figure of 28 to 30 million illegal aliens strikes me as entirely possible. In any event, a guess at the number of alien undesirables in the country, illegal (undesirable by definition) and legal (most resident aliens), would have to be at least 30 million. For illegals: deport on detection! For legals: review status, with a predisposition to deport! Let the burden of proof be on them to show why we should let them stay. To top it off, we should make flagrant American violators of the laws against hiring illegal aliens subject to forfeiture of their citizenship and deportation to the country whence came most of their illegal employees. That prospect would concentrate their minds wonderfully, and help them appreciate the merits of American workers. If we can’t do that, at least sentence them to hard labor cleaning up the Southwestern deserts that illegal aliens have fouled - in summertime. HRS

I thank Mr. Sutherland for his words about possible illegal and legal numbers. Perhaps the 28-30 million WOULD be legal and illegal, but I think not. Anyway, I have heard from articles I read at American Patrol that actual “invasion numbers” well over 230,000 a year from Mexico alone. Some are sent back, then break back in. Most are never caught. Political correctness (the left) and greed (cheap labor for the RINOS) are killing us on the Southern Border!

I will research this and see what if any mew figures may be forthcoming from my friends on the Arizona-Mexico border.