Don’t Fence Me In
ABC’s candidate-matching political quiz includes the question, “What should the federal government’s emphasis be in dealing with illegal immigration?” Not one option suits a genuinely (classical or contemporary) liberal position, by my lights anyway.
So I chose “Build a fence,” because I can’t see that working.
Comment by Thoreau —
November 7, 2007 @ 7:08 am
I had issues with a lot of those questions. But my matches came up (1) Paul, (2) Gravel, (3) Kucinich. So the quiz works. Too bad they didn’t match me with the Dodd, though. Respect the Dodd.
OK, I cheated on the last question, answering that I want somebody who’s served in the House.
Comment by mds —
November 7, 2007 @ 9:46 am
Ron Paul ‘08! Because a big fence and more militarization of the border will work!
Comment by mds —
November 7, 2007 @ 10:15 am
Sorry, should have let the tea kick in before making yet another grumpy post.
Anyway, (1) Gravel, (2) Kucinich, and (3) Obama. And Obama was a distant third, based on very few positives. These results are very encouraging. Fortunately, this was a cruddy poll. Any questions about civil liberty issues would have obviously given Dodd or Paul a boost. Stupid liberal media, buying completely into the Republican frame on the subject. Whoops, more tea.
Comment by Gary Farber —
November 7, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Polls without “none of the above” are worthless.
Comment by Kief —
November 7, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
Yuck, that poll is incredibly limited in the range of options. They might as well ask what is the only liquid you would like to drink, a) Coke, b) Pepsi.
Then again, the point of the poll is to choose between the existing mainstream candidates. So of course the options in the poll are frustratingly limited to a narrow set of choices that are only superficially different.
The last question is the perfect capper. “Do you want a rat that came from a sewer, garbage dump, or cememetary?”
Comment by Kief —
November 7, 2007 @ 1:47 pm
BTW, my top “choice” was Obama, based on 4 out of 11 matches. They should have a result of “stay home,” or maybe “emigrate.”
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 7, 2007 @ 5:42 pm
From the Open-Borders Houston Chronicle:
Comment by Gary Farber —
November 7, 2007 @ 6:24 pm
“I live 2½ miles from the border, and the fence is working.â€
Sure, if the national goal is to move the route of illegal immigrants a couple more miles down the road from Mark’s house.
Comment by Jim Henley —
November 7, 2007 @ 6:28 pm
If you’d bother to show up for the town meetings, Gary, you’d know that that was exactly what we decided.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 7, 2007 @ 6:35 pm
Sure, if the national goal is to move the route of illegal immigrants a couple more miles down the road from Mark’s house.
One town at a time, Gary, one town at a time.
Comment by mds —
November 7, 2007 @ 8:47 pm
Can we just skip to pointing out that sufficiently extensive N-foot fences will lead to (N+M)-foot ladders, where M is an adequate addition to allow easy traversal of said N-foot fence? Aha, but they’ll never get away with it with sufficient policing of the fence. Yeah, we need to eliminate that wasteful War on Drugs, so that we can put that money and manpower to work on fighting the real enemy: people seeking employment.
No, wait, I’ve got it: land sharks. With lasers.
Comment by Derek Copold —
November 7, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
Can we just skip to pointing out that sufficiently extensive N-foot fences will lead to (N+M)-foot ladders, where M is an adequate addition to allow easy traversal of said N-foot fence?
Only if you’re deluded enough to think that’s what will happen. Carrying a ladder to and climbing over a monitored fence is a difficult thing to do. It’s pretty much begging to be picked up. The barrier is an aid to those who are already policing the border.
…so that we can put that money and manpower to work on fighting the real enemy: people seeking employment.
…and killing citizens while driving drunk, consuming more in public services than they contribute, bringing in lovely diseases like Chagas and TB, stressing ecologies, increasing crime rates and so on and so forth–all so you can get your lawn cut cheap.
Comment by mds —
November 8, 2007 @ 10:15 am
Yeah, I really can’t figure out where anyone could get the idea that there’s a distressingly significant racist bloc to Ron Paul support. (Dirty, diseased, criminal beaner parasites. Why, they’re hardly human.)
Comment by Eric the .5b —
November 8, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
It’s opposed by the sensibly open-borders policy of who, though, MDS? Aside from the administration, all the other Reds are dumb on the issue – and a very large portion of Blues to boot. And unlike the war, this uniformity seems to resemble public opinion. Saying there’s a racist bloc to Ron Paul support is nothing more than saying there’s a racist angle to the mainstream attitude on immigration.
Comment by mds —
November 9, 2007 @ 9:41 am
No, I’m afraid there are degrees to this sort of thing. A generic unhappiness with the fact that illegal immigrants aren’t “playing by the rules,” or are “taking our jobs,” differs from specific rants about how disease-laden they are, or Malkinesque invocations of their drunk-driving reign of terror. There’s honest misunderstanding of the economic impact of illegal immigration; there’s passive, even unconscious, racism; and then there’s Stormfront and the Paul-supported Southern Caucus. The intensity matters.
Now, Dr. Paul himself does not necessarily agree with all the dehumanization of illegal immigrants indulged in by some of his followers. But he brings it on himself by vigorously endorsing the Wall Around America, by not being a genuine libertarian on the issue. See, that’s the thing. Tancredo is nothing more than a racist nut. But I would expect Dr. Paul to know better, so I’m able to be disappointed in him.