Indeed. I remember writing for national history day of Woodrow Wilson's campaign against “hyphenated Americans” (German-Americans, etc.). And in my home state, the Klan was largely organized to keep those strange immigrations from north-central Europe out (mostly Scandanavians and Germans)… How times have changed — even the racist-supremecists become more integrated over time!

(What happened in Firefox after you clicked submit? I can submit an error report for you.)

Adam,

Yeah, I did. Through Rush Limbaugh, talk radio was my first exposure to conservatism as an ideology as opposed to a reflex. Sean Hannity has always been light compared to Rush, and the different ways they handled their opposition to this bill made that clear again.

Ah yes, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes (Mark Twain?).

One problem with the above “level” argument is that they're different for different people.

The bill was a hot steaming pile but both sides were primarily arguing for “yes” or “no” as it was. Find me the majority – not the rare rational voice in the wilderness – on either side that was open to honest and wide-ranging debate and we could have gotten somewhere.

This is what happens when your bills are drafted by interest groups. Citizen wiki-draft a reasoned, rational mock bill and see who salutes. Then you'll have identified the people who aren't bought and paid for or who are willing to put aside their ideological sunglasses.

Indeed, and thus this caboose-breaking [1] during the immigration debate.

That said, the idea that America should have a protected class of low-skilled workers is a ghettoizing [2] philosophy.

a517d0gg,

I submitted an error report for you and Adrian. Hopefully it will be resolved soon.

Michael,

As I mentioned before [3], I'm not sure if I'm weakly opposed or weakly supportive of the Bush-McCain-Kennedy compromise. However, it was consistent with how the government passed globalizing reforms throughout the 1990s (NAFTA, WTO, etc): through elite cooperation.

Whether or not the public would actually support globalization on its merits is open to question, and the benefits of it may make it too important to risk a true public discussion. Globalization may indeed be a case where we “think Christian but speak Victorian” [4]

[1] http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2006/03/caboose_braking_in_india_and_c.html
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/06/28/against-the-racial-gap.html
[3] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/06/28/brilliant-baby.html
[4] http://cominganarchy.com/2007/07/01/how-to-you-say-speak-victorian-in-japanese/

I am now smarter… or at least more informed.