Axelrod: no prez tougher on border than Obama

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

This is not the 1950s

Really. So what?

[Craneman 2]

And your mama wears combat boots !

Really. So what?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Ah the non-sequitur game.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

[Craneman 2]

But we still have the "Holly Hand-grenade"

Ah the non-sequitur game.

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Woody Wilson was worse.

No fan of democracy or constitutional government, he wrote the following in Constitutional Government in the United States: “The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit….” Sounds like a devotee of the imperial presidency.

True. Herr Goebbels learned everything he knew from studying Woodrow Wilson and his writings.

[peejay 327]

Way to hijack my post and completely miss the point.

I was talking about Operation Wetback in 1950s - when your wife could have been summarily deported simply because she happened not to have ID on her in the event that she was stopped by police who thought she looked illegal.

People are endorsing the policies of the 1950s because they think that civil rights issues are red tape and so they look with rose-tinted glasses at a time when people didn't really care about the civil rights of racial minorities. I imagine the US back then was a great place to live - if you were white and your neighbours didn't shop you to the authorities as a suspected communist.

How do you know...because you read about it?

My grandparents were Belorussian and my granny never became a US citizen. It was quite obvious that they were foreigners because they looked Slavic and had heavy accents. They lived in Houston during the era you refer to and I never heard any stories in our family of being targeted for harassment. My grandfather became a US citizen in 1943 and my grandmother remained a citizen of the USSR along with registering as a foreign alien and getting one of the earliest Green Cards after foreigners were required to register during the war. They lived in the working class east side of Houston in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood. I grew up playing with the Hispanic kids in the neighborhood in the early 1960's and I never got the impression that the government was harassing anyone.

Maybe they cleared out all the illegals by the time I was old enough to remember.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

How do you know...because you read about it?

My grandparents were Belorussian and my granny never became a US citizen. It was quite obvious that they were foreigners because they looked Slavic and had heavy accents. They lived in Houston during the era you refer to and I never heard any stories in our family of being targeted for harassment. My grandfather became a US citizen in 1943 and my grandmother remained a citizen of the USSR along with registering as a foreign alien and getting one of the earliest Green Cards after foreigners were required to register during the war. They lived in the working class east side of Houston in a primarily Hispanic neighborhood. I grew up playing with the Hispanic kids in the neighborhood in the early 1960's and I never got the impression that the government was harassing anyone.

Maybe they cleared out all the illegals by the time I was old enough to remember.

How else would you know about history before your time, except by reading about it? I imagine the policy being referred as "Operation Wetback" would be why you didn't hear anything about it

Or it could simply have been that it wasn't as effective or pervasive as has been claimed.

[Ban Hammer 13,349]

Your numbers are extremely inflated !!

Nowhere do I find a number greater than 800,000, closer to 80,000, your 13,000,000 is exagerated even for today.

wikipedia lists about 1 mill, which meshes with what i've heard about it.

[peejay 327]

How else would you know about history before your time, except by reading about it? I imagine the policy being referred as "Operation Wetback" would be why you didn't hear anything about it

Or it could simply have been that it wasn't as effective or pervasive as has been claimed.

"Operation Wetback" was primarily aimed at agriculture where most illegals are concentrated. I saw some stats that even today around 60% of farm workers are illegal aliens. This is where a competently run guest worker program would make most sense.

The part of your post that riled me was the insinuation that non-whites and foreigners were systematically targeted in some sort of widespread government pogrom. And if not the government, the local redneck vigilantes were openly harassing people. I never saw my grandparents or any of their neighbors cowering in fear waiting to be arrested or harassed. It gives some sort of false impression that America in that era was some sort of Nazi police state where widespread violation of rights and harassment was the norm.

I never saw that, felt that, or heard anyone from my family express that.

Edited July 12, 2010 by peejay

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

"Operation Wetback" was primarily aimed at agriculture where most illegals are concentrated. I saw some stats that even today around 60% of farm workers are illegal aliens. This is where a competently run guest worker program would make most sense.

The part of your post that riled me was the insinuation that non-whites and foreigners were systematically targeted in some sort of widespread government pogrom. And if not the government, the local redneck vigilantes were openly harassing people. I never saw my grandparents or any of their neighbors cowering in fear waiting to be arrested or harassed.

I have no idea how widespread it was, but from what I understand hispanic USCs were targetted and deported along with illegals.

It gives some sort of false impression that America in that era was some sort of Nazi police state where widespread violation of rights and harassment was the norm.

Well it was, wasn't it? Forced Internment and confiscation of property, racial segregation, McCarthyism. Doesn't exactly sound like a time to be proud of.

[peejay 327]

I have no idea how widespread it was, but from what I understand hispanic USCs were targetted and deported along with illegals.

Well it was, wasn't it? Forced Internment and confiscation of property, racial segregation, McCarthyism. Doesn't exactly sound like a time to be proud of.

Equal to Nazi Germany? Ha!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You said "Nazi Germany", I didn't.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I have no idea how widespread it was, but from what I understand hispanic USCs were targetted and deported along with illegals.

It is true. Friends of my father's family got caught up in it -- my dad grew up in El Paso. It could easily have been his own family; his parents were -- shock! -- illegal immigrants who had been brought over the border as children during the Pancho Villa raids. By this point both my grandparents were citizens but it was something they saw happening. That my grandfather was high up in the Knights of Columbus probably kept him out of harm's way.

[peejay 327]

It is true. Friends of my father's family got caught up in it -- my dad grew up in El Paso. It could easily have been his own family; his parents were -- shock! -- illegal immigrants who had been brought over the border as children during the Pancho Villa raids. By this point both my grandparents were citizens but it was something they saw happening. That my grandfather was high up in the Knights of Columbus probably kept him out of harm's way.

It sounds like a good story, but being a US citizen and a long time resident was most likely the reason he wasn't deported.

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

It sounds like a good story, but being a US citizen and a long time resident was most likely the reason he wasn't deported.

The person in question who was "deported" was a natural born US citizen.