Whatever we eventually do regarding the illegal alien question, it will be fruitless unless real measures for assimilation follow.

Close the borders. Enforce the laws. Now, git goin!!! It’s THAT simple, folks.

Socialist lefties like to chirp about “Taking Back America”.

Today we all took our government back. The American people took it back.

I am a passionate conservative, a rugged individualist. No radio yapper ever told me how to think. But they sure can help rally the troops when it counts. Godblessem’.

Forcing politicians to listen to the electorate is a good thing. We vote, special interests do not. When we speak the career politicians damn well better listen, or they can go back to their profitable private law practice.

The political landscape has changed, bigtime. I predict a new accountability on both sides as the next election day draws near. Which ones will pay attention? I don’t care. Whoever does will win. In a landslide.

Standing up to this imigration amnesty nonsense was a modern day Boston Tea Party. If you wrote or faxed your representatives as I did you should feel very proud.

I have never felt better to be an American citizen. The system does work!!

Enforce the laws. Let’s Make America Great Again®!

Of course, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.

God Bless (all real) America(ns)

Thanks for clearing it up, ST. You’re right..there were times when the tone on some conservative blogs had an inexcusable Kos- or DU-like quality. Fortunately, you did keep this an outpost of sanity.

As for readers leaving…you and I may have disagreed on this bill, but I’m not going anywhere, and I hope the rest of the regulars stay as well. It’s damned hard to find in one place this good a collection of people with insight into issues and the knack for expressing it well.

My “mob rule mentality” comment had to do with so many opponents trying to shout down dissent. As I’ve acknowledged previously, I know both sides have engaged in this, but because there is such an overwhelming ’surge’ (no pun intended) of negative opinions against this bill, it’s only natural that you’re going to see more people on that side of the aisle talking about it, and talking down people who disagree or are ‘fencesitters.’

There was not a blog I could visit where the comments section wasn’t a nasty fest shouting down disagreement – in some cases, it was the bloggers themselves being among the worst offenders. The piece that took the cake was Hugh’s post defending Kyl, and the massive wave of abuse he took over that position, being accused of having the administration “get to him” etc as if what he was saying wasn’t of his own volition, when he was one of the ones leading the charge against the bill to begin with.

That is why I referred to the ‘mob rule mentality’ that has taken over this debate. Rational debaters like you and Mwalimu and forest are voices in the wilderness against the tidal wave opposition (or ‘mob’) that thinks people like me are ‘traitors’ etc who should be ignored and walked over.

I know many of the bill’s opponents are justifiably upset because of what was said about them through all this, but lost in all of it was how the fencesitters and proponents felt like at being in the minority and reading almost daily how they were a ’shill for Jorge’ and traitors. Because of my expressing my exasperation as to how all this played out, I have lost readers – for simply stating my opinion. The bill is dead for now, so this is all water under the bridge of course, but it’s going to take a while for the ‘healing’ to really work its magic. I’m really upset about this, probably just as upset as the bill’s opponents were in the days leading up to the cloture votes.

I personally wish that I could wake up in the morning and realize that ALL of this was just a bad dream.

If you mean that in some quarters, this debate got downright uncivil and vicious, then I agree. The tone on both sides went far beyond nasty, and I didn’t like it one bit either. It got way out of hand in some blogs, which I now avoid. This blog was a noteworthy exception, thanks largely to ST’s firm insistence on keeping it respectful.

But I am a little perplexed about calling the overall response to the bill a “mob rule mentality”.

Leftist students on campuses assaulting conservative guest speakers or the Minutemen, as happened at Columbia – that’s a mob.

The anti-capitalist nut cases that ran loose destroying property in Seattle a few years ago during the economic summit there – that’s a mob.

Union thugs busting into GOP campaign headquarters, breaking arms, and shooting bullets through the windows – that’s a mob.

Thousands of citizens calling their Senator and telling him they’ll never vote for him or donate to him again if he supports cloture – that’s not a mob.

Or am I missing the point of the comment?

And how is this bill going to help a single one of these situations???

How does calling for mass deportation, when we know it’s never going to happen, help either? I never said this bill ‘helped’ any of those situations. It just deals with the illegals in general in a practical manner. I get sick of hearing about illegals who are charged with a serious crime being deported, only to slip back over and commit another crime. If they were legal, we wouldn’t have to deport them. We could lock them up – for a long time – and not have to worry about them slipping over the border fence again, whether the thing has been built or not.

There also seems to be this assumption that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are criminals (I’m not saying you said that, but that’s the impression I get from a lot of arguments I see). To my knowledge, most of them just come here to make a better life but end up taking advantage of the system – because the government has made it easy for them to do. Now that the problem has become overwhelming, the government has to come up with workable solutions to deal with the problem.

As to the rest of what you said, there isn’t a person reading this blog who hasn’t been outraged at hearing about the illegal immigrants who have killed people in drunk driving accidents or in their homes, upset over the ones who drain our public system dry, and who hasn’t been disgusted at some of the illegal immigrant ‘communities’ where trash fills the front yard. Just because there are people out there who disagree with the majority on this issue does not mean that those people don’t share the same concerns that everyone else has.

And how is this bill going to help a single one of these situations??? It doesn’t address a single one of the problems most people have with illegals. All it does is fast track them to citizenship or give them standing with a new visa. Other than those two things it helps no one. Once this bill was signed and became law, you would see a rush to enter into this country like nobody has seen ever. Our best estimates are 10,000 illegals per day, I have to wonder how fast this would double or triple, forged documents in hand stating they have been in this country since 2002 or whatever, if this bill had become law.

I hurt for these people everyday, but you cannot solve one problem by creating another. It just doesn’t work that way. Reid thinks in his smugness that he has some sort of victory, he is in error. I have a re-newed hope, that the Republicans are listening, that they will start to do the right thing, and they will come back into power with the next election cycle. Or let us hope and pray they do. – Lorica

Right now I doubt anyone knew what the bill actually was, including all the sponsors.

I’m not happy about what happened today, but I’m not sad either. I’m very disappointed in conservatives who have called for the heads of the president and any senator who didn’t vote the way they wanted them to vote.

I voted for Bush twice and would do so again given the choices we had. I will never demean him by calling him names the way some bloggers have. (Not you ST).

The same people yelling about this bill are the same ones who allowed a Democratic congress in that forced us to make concessions we didn’t want from a senatorial point of view.

Now they’ll tell everyone to abandon the party again and show them again. I hope everyone is pleased if we have a President Hillary Clinton or a President Obama.

Some conservatives have shown themselves to be as classless as those on DU and Kos.