I used italics (and closed the tag) on G.E’s. post, but my response was italicized as well. My post began with “I suggest that doing so via a third party…”

Sorry for any confusion I may have caused!

I suggest that doing so via a third party won’t accomplish much. Consider that not only does half the eligible population chooses NOT to participate in the electoral process (which implies they don’t pay attention to politics), but that you are saying we “spread the word” via third party politics. Third parties are already marginalized as it is. If you want to spread ideas, then you should find a more efficient vehicle for doing so.

I never claimed it was, nor am I for any of the things you mentioned-but thats a sweet Straw Man you set up.

I have heard Paul himself say we shouldn’t scapegoat immigrants, but he sure seems to be aligning himself a lot with people who are professional “scapegoaters” and the “movement” ( at least superficially) has taken on an anti-immigrant, economically ignorant flavor.

Correct. BTW That’s paulie with an e.

Absolutely true that many immigrants want to pull up the ladder. Not me.

How exactly is a night watchman state compatible with the idea of a government that goes into every business to check the papers of all their employees, builds a massive wall/police garrison on the border, and/or rounds up and deports over ten million people?

And towards what goal? So Americans can pick lettuce? Absurd. If Americans wanted to pick lettuce at a reasonable price, the market for immigrant labor would not exist.

By the way, if it was not for the earlier era of anti-immigrant racism and xenophobia around 100 years ago, there would be no such thing as an illegal immigrant, because the US never had immigration quotas until then. Immigrants were free to come in and work for a better life, as they should be again. So even if you are not racist, what you want is to enforce more laws which were based on racism. Why?

That, added to the fact that virtually every “argument” against open immigration is based on shoddy logic or transparent fear, and has been undone by the aforementioned generations of foreigners who have graced our shores and improved our country in ways that can’t be calculated, make me question the motives of people who cling so tightly to their borders.

Even on security, a policy of letting peaceful people enter freely wins. So I do tend to think that people who have a stick up their ass about letting people from out there in here are, if not racist or xenophobic at heart, probably buying into arguments that ARE xenophobic or racist at heart. Because historically, that’s what it’s been about every time.

But maybe this generation of people who are extremely wary of foreigners are miraculously different from all the past generations of such people. Perhaps they have found a way to be extremely wary of foreigners without being xenophobic.

You have me wrong, but not terribly so–just a confusion on what would grow government. The third option you presented is FAR preferable to either the first or second. I still do believe, like Ron Paul, that secure borders are neccesary–but im no protectionist, and thus dont have any use for restricting immigration once the welfare state is abolished or made to exclude non-citizens.