The Great Debate?

Watched the Republican debates in Florida the other night. Very intersting, but there's so many candidates, nobody gets enough time.

Just my take:

Romney's too slick by half; Perry's too inarticulate and still in the governor mindset, an advocate for Texas. Not a bad thing, just not presidential.

And I'd like to add, a long time ago I did a story on how to assimilate foreign-born workers into the US workplace. Do you learn their language or teach them English? Do you provide them opportunites for advancement or just exploit them? Pretty crass way to phrase it, but there it is.

I talked to a man who was an exec at Texs Instruments at the time. Ya see, Texas has a long, long border with Mexico and its foreign-born, notably Mexican-born, population was growing faster than its population of US citizens. This guy from Texas Instruments made an excellent point.

He said the way to get immigrants (of any kind, actually) into the American mainstream was to "give them a stake in it." Therefore, I can't disagree with Perry and Texas' policy of letting the kids of even illegal immigrants attend state-run colleges and universities at the rate given to residents. More than likely, those kids were born here even if their parents were illegal. So what do you do with them IN THE REAL WORLD? That's the question. I mean, this isn't Utopia after all, and Texas has lived with this issue longer than most.

The kids are here. They're going to stay here. You can't deport them. So are you going to force them into poverty, give them a case for hating the US? Herd them into some ghetto? That's kind of like what happened to the Palestinians who deported themselves out of Israel. They squatted in hovels and nurtured their grievances. Their unhappy situation was all Israel's fault, they whined. They make really good cannon fodder for people like Yassir Arafat and Osama bn Ladn. And in the Middle East, this wasn't the Israeli policy, but the Palestinian policy.

So, anyway, no. You don't disenfranchise the children of even illegal immigrants, but allow them a stake in America. It's not a free ride. They still have to pay for school, just at the rate given to Texas residents, which apparently they are. They still have to get themselves a job and support themselves. And once they own a "piece of the rock," they usually become productive and respectable citizens.

But police the borders, and fix that law about automatic citzenship if you're born in the USA. That was written to ensure the citizenship of newly-freed slaves. In Texas, it's not the fault of the kids that their parents jumped the fence. And it's largely a state issue, isn't it, at state-run universities?

And you know what? Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. Sorry about that. I'm pretty much stuck with it, too, or will be soon, but that doesn't change the fact that I have been forced to pay for it all of my life, and that it no longer works and was bound to run out of steam someday. I understand Romney being afraid to get too close to that "third rail," especially in Florida, but I think we need to do something about it, like completely restructure it. I was in favor of privatizing Social Security 20 years ago and still am, though I'm too old now to benefit from it.

I thought Rick Santorum was awful. Harping and desperate. Yeah, we know you're one of the most conservative people on earth.

Herman Cain did win. He came off as reasonable, responsible, friendly, and humble, though I'm not so sure I agree with his "9-9-9" solution for a few reasons I won't go into here, except to say that it's too likely to be abused the next time we get people like the Comrade, Pelosi and Reid in positions of authority. No matter what kind of legislative fence you build around it, the slimy socialists will find a way around it.

Huntsman sounded curiously like a very slickly schooled Ron Paul. Gary Johnson, a Libertarian like Ron Paul, also sounded like Ron Paul, not surprisingly. I must say, the Libertarians do have their own brand of Kool-Aid. Gary Johnson had the best line of the night, saying his neighbor's two dogs had produced more "shovel-ready jobs" than the Comrade's administration.

That leaves Newt Gingrich, who seemed so laid back it was bizarre. But apparently he's coming out with his own economic policy this week, so he was holding his fire, I guess. He and Herman Cain were picked most often as a preferred v.p. candidate on the ticket. I'd love Gingrich as V.P., if in that position he was allowed considerable power to 1.) deal with congress; 2.) develop policy; 3.) head up the program to slice & dice the federal machine. But in that case, what would the president do?

Michelle Bachman came off sounding like a tax accountant. I understand her wanting to back up all her statements by quoting their sources -- she's been criticized for saying unpardonable things like "John Wayne grew up in Winterset, Iowa" -- but she sounded kinda like a robot and came in last in the Florida Straw Poll.

So that's about it. I'd still prefer any of these people over the Comrade.

Save the Republic.