Rudy Giuliani may have stabbed himself in the heart recently. I have two “hot button” issues and this is one of them. From a Glenn Beck interview with presidential candidate Giuliani:
GLENN: Right. But isn’t illegal immigration a crime in and of itself?
GIULIANI: No.
GLENN: Aren’t you saying —
GIULIANI: Glenn —
GLENN: You’re protecting criminals by saying that being treated as a criminal is unfair.
GIULIANI: Glenn, it’s not a crime. I know that’s very hard for people to understand, but it’s not a federal crime.
GLENN: It’s a misdemeanor but if you’ve been nailed, it is a crime. If you’ve been nailed, ship back and come back, it is a crime.
GIULIANI: Glenn, being an illegal immigrant, the 400,000 were not prosecuted for crimes by the federal government, nor could they be. I was U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York. So believe me, I know this. In fact, when you throw an immigrant out of the country, it’s not a criminal proceeding. It’s a civil proceeding.
GLENN: Is it —
GIULIANI: One of the things that congress wanted to do a year ago is to make it a crime, which indicates that it isn’t.
GLENN: Should it be?
GIULIANI: Should it be? No, it shouldn’t be because the government wouldn’t be able to prosecute it. We couldn’t prosecute 12 million people. We have only 2 million people in jail right now for all the crimes that are committed in the country, 2.5 million. If you were to make it a crime, you would have to take the resources of the criminal justice system and increase it by about 6. In other words, you’d have to take all the 800,000 police, and who knows how many police we would have to have.
GLENN: So what’s your solution?
GIULIANI: My solution is close the border to illegal immigration.
GLENN: How do you do that?
GIULIANI: You do that by building a fence, a physical fence and a technological fence, and the technological fence is more important than the physical fence. The technological fence would alert you to illegals approaching the border well in advance so the border patrol can get there and stop them. You deploy the border patrol every 50 miles along the border.
I’ve already outlined this on a map. I did this in detail about two weeks ago. And then you have the border patrol stop people from coming in, literally stop them from coming in. If you did that for a year or two, you would end it.
You also have a tamperproof ID card that every person from a foreign country should have that comes into the United States. The goal has to be, yes, you’re allowed to come to the United States but you have to identify yourself before we let you in, and we have to be sure you’re a safe person. And then if you come in, you’ll be in the computer base, you’ll be able to work, you will have to pay your fair share, you’ll have to pay taxes but we have to end it right at the border by having the resources to stop people from just walking into this country and not identifying themselves.
Only the federal government can do this.
If the federal government doesn’t do this, there is no way that the local governments in this country can handle it other than in a practical way.
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If you make people that are just going to be here for the next 20 years, if you put them in a situation of danger and risk, you’re going to have more crime in your communities.
Oh really? Is that correct? Perhaps you can hear the enamel grating from my teeth at this point; nevertheless: Agree? Disagree? Make your own decision.
BZ
If there was ANY conservative in this nation, and ANY Repub with brains that didn’t already know that Guiliani is a blithering idiot, this should be the defining moment…
Its not a crime unless some fed agency BOTHERS to catch you. Right now it doesnt seem that ANY govt agency is bothering to go after them, now if they happen to wander into one MAYBE they will be caught.
#5 is starting to look alot like Guiliani.
Talk about committing political suicide. I think he just did.
Ranando: LMAO!!
Good ol’ Giuli-RINO.
Gents: the proverbial “gun to the forehead.”
BZ
I’ve been surprised that so many conservatives were willing to overlook this in Rudy up till now. Immigration isn’t a hot button issue for me but I know it is for many. Unless Fred Thompson totally blows it I think he is going to be our guy.
Dee: I could have overlooked some of his issues had he not attempted to make his thoughts on this abundantly clear, and his clarity on the issue has certainly persuaded me, though not in the manner and fashion he necessarily desired.
BZ
Mr. Giuliani must learn that being President is NOT ‘Super Mayor’. The entire field must learn that it is also NOT: ‘Super Governor’ or ‘Super Senator’.
That covers the entire field at this point. I am unconvinced that any of those running, even Mr. Thompson, has a clue about what being President means. And their ability to be War President, which the next President will also be, is also lacking from the entire field for my viewpoint, at least.
I am not talking about ‘conservative’ but just ‘knowing what the job is’. Yes I have looked at them all, and am unimpressed with the dog’s breakfast being offered by the two parties. Some are less rotten than others, but they all stink. I do not expect a shining soul from a politician: they are running for President not to be Beatified at some future date.
Unfortunately I don’t think any of them have actually read the job description of the job they are applying for. This is without exception. I had thought to give a small amount to the three least worse, but they have each proven their incapacity in understanding the job, itself. So my money sits in my wallet. Either stand up for this Nation as a Nation free to navigate the seas of trouble we are in, or get the hell out of the contest.
And, no, getting one or two issues *right* is not point. It is understanding the job so you can then do what is necessary to keep the Nation secure and safe, and run the government tolerably well. You do not get a *legislative agenda*, that is done in this body known as: Congress. Do not expect laws you want to be passed to get passed, you work with what you have and make a case to the People if things are going awry.
On immigration, warfare, actually naming the enmies of the Nation and doing something about them, having a foreign policy that is not ‘bend over and kiss everyone’s ass’: they all lack in these areas, though some are worse than others.
If this is the *best* the vaunted two party system can do, then we are headed to no good end. And our own turnout shows that: we are nearly a ‘failed state’. The exact same things that the founders of this Nation warned us about, at length and in detail in their discussions about how to have and hold this Nation together, those failure states are now becoming self-evident. They were not only examining the past, but looking to the future generations so that everyone would know what failure looks like. Few look because they don’t care… and that *is* a failure state in and of itself. That is how democracy and republics FALL, in case folks missed the lessons of the 20th century that underlined those.
Can we just get someone who has read the damned Constitution to run for office? Any of them, really…