[DVaut1]

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Congress is not representing the will of majority America on many issues, so why presume it would do so on this issue? Didn't someone post a poll in another thread showing that most Americans want better enforcement of existing immigration laws and fewer overall immigrants?

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I won't comment on "majorities", but the thought that support for tougher immigration standards in the US is universally held sounds downright false to me. I don't particularly care if 50%+1 (or 50% plus millions) have concluded immigration standards need to be stricter, but my preferences aren't really relevant.

Neither are the preferences of the majority of Americans really relevant, either. My Congressman doesn't work for all three-hundred million Americans, he works for the 600,000 or so that are in his district. And even then, he probably only works for those who he thinks will vote. And even then, he probably works harder for those who he thinks will vote for him.

So the question of what kind of political implications that GOP immigration policy will have in future elections aren't answered by "well, 60% of people want border patrols rounding up Mexicans and deporting them, ergo it would be good politics to do this". Of course, as noted, cited current polling is useless anyway; the Tom Tancredos of the world are problematic for the GOP because demographic changes will ensure that current polling data will be irrelevant a decade from now.

So getting back to what you said earlier:

"Maybe so, but what about the notion of BOTH parties representing the will of the people"

1) I think it's false to assume "the people" have a unified will here.

2) Political parties expressly and candidly don't support the will "of all the people". When I cut a check to the DNC (which I don't really do, but let's pretend anyway) -- I don't want Democratic candidates to represent the will of Rush Limbaugh or the editors of the National Review. Political parties represent the will of their members. And there are significant factions of people in both parties who *don't* want tougher immigration standards, hence why this is a battle in the first place. If everyone (or even most everyone) agreed on what kind of immigration policy we should follow, as you claim, we wouldn't even be having this debate. But such that it exists, rest assured there are actually two sides to this debate.

So claiming that Congress is failing to meet "the will of the people" is fallacious at best. I'm a person, and I don't want tougher immigration standards, so they're respecting my wishes when they don't pass tougher immigration standards. Claims about "the will of the people" are usually nothing more than a hand-waving attempt to pretend everyone agrees and the policy should be obvious.

This clearly isn't the case here, so feel confused no longer: when you scratch your head wondering why Congress isn't doing what you want, otherwise euphemistically referred to as "the will of the people", you should consider that people (like me) probably don't want the same things you want, that "the will of the people" isn't clear or obvious despite the best (or worst) efforts of pollsters, and that in many cases, it doesn't matter anyway, because there are alot of legitimate reasons for elected representatives not to act on every whim and flight of fancy that grabs a hold of the electorate.

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Placing allegiance to your ethnicity above allegiance to America does equal disloyalty to America.

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Your standard for judging whether or not someone is "loyal to America" is whether or not they support tougher immigration standards and/or enforcement of the current laws. How is this nothing more than a repulsive "agree with me, or I will label you a traitorous unAmerican outsider!"

I don't support America's drug laws; am I traitor? If black people in the South at the turn of the twentieth century disfavor Jim Crows laws, are they putting their ethnicity ahead of their allegiance to the country?

Again, your "reasoning" is moronic at best and disgustingly bigoted at worst. I don't see why I should demand that Hispanic immigrants should support American immigration standards if they find them to be racist and immoral, anymore than I don't think I should have to support American drug laws, or the Patriot Act, or a whole host of other laws I disagree with. I don't doubt there's a whole host of American law that you find to be in poor taste; are you a traitor because of it?

So if Hispanic immigrants, be they legal or otherwise, want to jump ship on the GOP because they find their immigration policies to be racist or just stupid, that sounds justifiable to me. Why are they held to a different standard than I? The only reason I can think of is "they're brown and I'm not", or "they're new here, and I was born here". Sure sounds either bigoted or xenophobic to me.

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The point I was trying to make is that IF Latino immigrants will be turned against a party that is trying to enforce America's laws, merely because of ethnicity, that would show that their primary allegiance is to their ethnicity (or perhaps to Mexico) rather than to America.

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Again, this is ridiculous. Since when did we concede "enforcing laws" is our highest moral priority -- or a moral priority at all? Since when does opposing the enforcement of poorly thought out laws make someone a treacherous non-American?

Again, you do nothing but question begging -- you just assume irrational canards to be prima facie true, then ask silly questions where you assume your canards are true.

So let's make this perfectly clear for you: just because the GOP is trying to "enforce America's laws" does not make those laws moral; opposing the enforcement of stupid laws does not make one a traitor, and it says nothing about where someone's allegiances lie.

If the Democratic majority in Congress decided tomorrow to propose laws that rounded up recent Japanese immigrants and put them into camps, I certainly wouldn't fault Americans of Japanese decent from abandoning the Democratic party en masse, even if their concern was MERELY BECAUSE OF THEIR ETHNICITY.

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That's not fitting for a Latino immigrant nor is it fitting for a German immigrant nor an Irish immigrant. That's not fitting for an AMERICAN. That's not fitting for an immigrant to ANY country in the world. If you are to immigrate to America, it is to become an American (first and foremost). That's what the darn word "immigration" MEANS, that's why immigrants swear allegiance.

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Since when did "swearing allegiance" entail "supporting every stupid law some jackasses create"? I ostensibly "swear allegiance" to this country, but I certainly don't like immigration laws. I don't want them enforced. I would gladly give an illegal immigrant a job. Is that NOT FITTING FOR AN AMERICAN, or do I still get to keep my label because I'm white and I was born here? Why do Latinos get held to a different standard?

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To me, it's rather amazing that you seem to have such
great difficulty with my reasoning in virtually every thread whereas many others usually do not.

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I can't speak for others, so I won't comment on how others judge "your reasoning", but yes, it's true, I find you to be generally moronic in most instances. So you need no longer be amazed when I have great difficult with your reasoning.

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The clearest example is the thread I cited wherein "She" stepped in and deflated your reasoning stance with a quote from American Jurisprudence. You apparently just never got it. Practically everyone in the original thread disagreed with your reasoning, so just maybe the problem is the mote in one's own eye, sometimes?

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Yeah, that you still don't understand that Article III of the Constitution exists, and that judicial review is an empirical reality in American jurisprudence is somewhat surprising to me, but merely because two other guys in the thread were as ignorant as you isn't all that compelling.

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Well, the best I can do for you from this point forward will be to genuinely pray for you, and that I promise to do.

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MMMMMM, try as you might, your transparent condescension-in-the-form-of-faux-politeness never ceases to amuse me.