Throw Them Out; No, Send the Welcome Wagon: Margaret Carlson

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&sid=aho0xI_wn7yo&refer=columnist_carlson#

Throw Them Out; No, Send the Welcome Wagon: Margaret Carlson
March 30 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. immigration debate is dividing the Republican party into two camps.

There are the so-called compassionate types like the president, who want to satisfy the seemingly unquenchable thirst of business for cheap labor and coincidentally do the humane thing.

And there are the tough guys, who want to take their country back from what former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan calls ``the transnational corporations'' who have turned America into a ``damn flophouse for the world.''

Immigration brings out the emotions like nothing since Terri Schiavo became America's Patient. The proposals run from ``throw them all out and build a $3 billion wall'' to ``send a Welcome Wagon to the border.'' In the middle, there are those who would let Mexicans in to pick grapes and scrub floors only if there's no chance they will become one of us.

The rhetoric is at a level usually reserved for gay marriage. It grew more heated when religion got into it. In response to a provision in a House bill that would punish those who help illegals, Cardinal Roger Mahoney of the Los Angeles Diocese wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times pledging to continue to help them. ``Denying aid to a fellow human being,'' he wrote, ``violates a law with higher authority than Congress -- the law of God.''

[Atman]

1. Wouldn't it be easier if we just threw the government and corp's out?

Virtually all sides are a little bit right on this issue. But not any of them are willing to actually work out a solution. They're all just trying to protect a constituency instead of their country.

[MADem]

2. That last paragraph you quoted is especially interesting

After all the work the GOP has done to drag the Catholic church over the line to the dark side, this one issue has caused the soporific hierarchy to sit up and issue a "blessed be the samaritans" edict.

It sure will put a damper on Catholic-GOP turnout, at least those who actually warm the pews every week. Hell, if they can't pull the lever for a Dem, just as well they stay home.