Redstate

silly, you don't have to be registered, living, able to count (or perhaps it is that you must be able to count past on(c)e), or think, to vote - as long as you vote Democrat.

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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

have to sign off?
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

have to sign off on TSA adopting this rule. The states can do what they want. We had the Executive Order ready to go when CA was flirting with it.

In Vino Veritas

under DHS "Real ID" but that plan has been held up because there are issues with many states. It seems absurd for NY to be moving in the wrong direction though - making it easier for any illegals (including terrorists) to obtain identification documents.

Spitzer needs to be hammered on this, as well as Hillary and Schumer (assuming they support it). Perhaps we can get the legislature to do something - left a voicemail with my State Senator this morning.

Spitzer is mistaken when he assumes this will save on insurance costs. How can you assume that folks who broke the law entering the country and then broke the law driving w/o a license would suddenly obey the law and obtain insurance when given a license... Won't happen in the real world.
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison

Between the corruption, the lies, the criminal behavior, and now this, Spitzer is starting to remind me of Gray Davis.

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No recall in NY. Recall, along with referendum and initiative legislation, were hallmarks of the Progressive Era at the turn of the century. Most eastern states never had large Progressive Party populations so they didn't adopt them. They are much more likely to be found in Midwestern and Western states.

I wish I lived in NYS so that I could join the phone bank and stop this metastasis from spreading. Since I don't I want to just give you my moral support and tell you that I'm going to send a letter to *every one* of our Presidential candidates telling them that the time is NOW to make this an issue for the rest of the campaign. The only debate should be about which one of them has the better plan to stop it from ever happening again.

Not only am I willing to pay for it, I'm willing to stand out in the rain with banners, flyers, bumperstickers and everything else I can use to make sure they get heard on this issue.

The aspiring politicians won't make this a campaign issue unless they are forced to do so. And we're going to have to force them.

I realize that there are moderates on the immigration issue who disagree with me here at RedState, but I say to them:

My family pays $24,000 a year for health insurance. I pay my license and registration fees, my user fees, my tolls, my excise taxes, my state taxes, my federal taxes and my local taxes. I'm struggling to start a business. I'm working on that so that I can generate some wealth for myself and *also* so that I can employ some actual Americans at rates that are considerably above the "minimum wage". I'm absolutely sick and tired of people like Colin Powell and Eliot Spitzer telling me that bringing illegal immigrants out of the shadows is something we should all be committed to paying for.

Enough IS enough. This is not The Onion.

If people in New York State want illegal immigrants to be able to drive, they should take some of the enormous sums of money they waste on health and human services and redirect it *first* to deporting people their state is bringing in by the boatload to make this asinine and amoral policy seem "necessary" in the first place.

Extending the social-welfare safety net in the way we've done to illegal immigrants is the *last straw* and it is going to *break* this country. The Democrats want to preside over a Brokeback Country, but I don't want to live in it.

And I say that as the third-generation descendant of Polish immigrants to this country. My great-grandmother came here on a steamship in steerage in the late 1800s and my family worked as pig farmers and foundry workers and literally stacked one dime on top of another to send their kids to college (without a single dollar from the government).

When she arrived here, she didn't speak a word of English, had no job, and there was no place to be readily employed, even as a servant. Highways didn't exist. Cars didn't exist, and free medical care and driver's licenses didn't exist either. If people think that building this country by offering those things to illegals is the way to build a better America, they're dead wrong.

Colin Powell has "evolved" on this issue primarily because he's taking my money in order to do it. It's time it was stopped in its tracks.

I've lived in this country all my life. A country that's supposed to be great and filled with opportunity, a country with the gathering of some of the greatest minds in the world, a country that could have accomplished things others could only hope and dream of, but recently, I and most of the world almost hurl when we think about it. I am blessed to work with the best minds in the world, and these mind only see where this country is now headed- racism, recession, and more to come. This country does not deserve to be called the United States, but rather, The Divided States of America. But that issue is beside the point. What has bothered me tremendously is the fact that I've seen things that I had seldom seem in my 32 years living here- that everyone in America wastes their lives being mangy and caring about things that only benefit them. I'm glad I believe in GOD and learn to love thy neighbor without worrying or using them as scapegoats for my problems. I can talk all day long, but people only care about what is beneficial to them and do not care anymore about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's too pitiful to even type another word. Grow up America.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

But don't question his patriotism!

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www.win-the-war.com.

But it is the mythical 'don't post on this site anymore unless you use the Contact form and are granted reinstatement' stick, that a few guys like Moe get to wield.

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Conservatives believe in putting the country first. We for one wouldn't invite someone who is actively involved in killing American soldiers to speak at a university. We also believe that with hard work and a willingness to confront the future, our circumstances can and will be improved.
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"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

I hope other states do start renouncing their reciprocity agreements with New York.

The state in which I live, Tennessee, no longer gives driving privileges to illegal aliens. I would like to see Tennessee renounce its reciprocity agreement with New York.

Illegal aliens should never be issued driver licenses. Three of the 9/11 Middle Eastern immigrants that murdered nearly three thousand Americans were illegal aliens by virtue of their visas being expired.

"The defense of our nation begins with the defense of our borders." - Rep. Tom Tancredo

www.tancredo4prez.blogspot.com and www.teamtancredo.org

That's not how things are in Sanctuary City Rudy World. That's what his actions have shown us.

Well in between taking calls from his lovely wife.

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

Steve, I figured you'd like Rudy, since I thought your view was that we ought to nominate more Riordans than Simons in California, and Rudy's just the east coast Riordan.

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Neil Neil Neil

If you want to move to the South where the brand of conservatism you preach is practiced, then do so. That brand is dead in CA and not going to be coming back, so get over it.

The rest of us California Republicans have grow tired of waiting for the electorate to turn HARD RIGHT to catch up with the candidates that you and the forces controlling the party out here seem to support. I'll take a Governator, a Riordan, a Simon and anyone else that understands fiscal conservatism, law and order and at least some of the traditional values of the Republican party still exist. Better to have someone that listens and is a RINO as you claim, than being governed by the party of San Fran Nan, One Bill Gill and Lenno.

But keep up pushing nominees that can't get elected to state wide office, it seems to float your boat somehow.

Oh...end of thread jack. Why don't you write a blog about CA politics and we can take it there.

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

I was just curious about your own preferences.

sorry,

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

when voting in NY. I've even offered to show it, pulling out my wallet, but the poll workers have always said "no that's not required".
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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison

LA! San Francisco! You may secede at will!

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The fact that states and localities are able to even contemplate these sorts of actions and are able to become "sanctuary cities" is just the modern version of John Calhoun's nullification doctrine. The states are effectively saying that federal laws need not be followed in their jurisdictions.

I would love to see a court challenge of these as violating the constitutional reservation of power over immigration and naturalization rules to the federal government - as aren't the "sanctuary" jurisdictions creating their own immigration codes by not only refusing to enforce federal laws, but by actively turning a blind eye to violations that present themselves?

Republicans running for office just pledge to cut the Federal funding to cites, states, counties, whoever decides they don't want to be part of the Union by declaring themselves "Sanctuary" zones.

Love to see how Democrats spin that.

Love to see the ballerina costume Rudy G. puts on to dance around that pledge too!

Joe Six Pack will get it however.

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

Could you imagine the outcry if some small towns and counties somewhere decided that they were going to instruct their law enforcement and other government officials to do nothing about, and to actively ignore violations of federal civil rights laws?

Just to give everyone a little taste of how sick this country has become under the liberal leadership in so many of our northeastern states, I want to also tell you this personal story:

When I first moved to Massachusetts a little over a year and a half ago, I kept my Illinois Driver's license because at the time I wasn't working (we hadn't even begun to start our business at that time) and I really couldn't afford the more than $100 it was going to take to have my license transferred to Massachusetts right away, so when I got my car registered and got my plates, I decided to wait the full 60 days to have my license transferred.

In the interim, Illinois (another Bluest of the Blue states) suspended my Illinois license due to a technicality in a law that was passed by the Illinois legislature after I had moved. The technicality was related to reporting my insurance status as out-of-state in Illinois.

Within 2 days of my license being suspended, the local police in my town had already received notification through their computer network (I know the Chief, so I know he has computerized list of people and the status of their licenses cross-referenced to their license plates) and I was pulled over, my car was towed, and I had to pay more than $100 in fines and towing fees plus provide proof that I had satisfied Illinois' new technicality in writing, in person, to a municipal magistrate. He gave me 15 days to have my license transferred "or else" he was going to prosecute me on charges of driving under a suspended license, which would have caused my new insurance rates to instantly skyrocket, and I wouldn't have been able to drive for at least six months.

This is what happens to American citizens in this country. The illegal immigrants under Eliot Spitzer, however, get a blushing welcome and a red-carpet ride to the DMV so they can get themselves "legal" in the eyes of NYS.

I am absolutely, completely beyond furious not just at the actions of Spitzer et. al., in NYS but also because the American people are allowing this insanity to continue by even *thinking about* electing a Democrat to the Presidency.

When are the people in this country going to start fighting back against this madness by throwing these people out of office?

More to come on Medicare and other subjects in a later post. I want to make it unequivocal to every Republican candidate left standing after next month:

MAKE THIS AN ISSUE. IT'S TIME THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAD SOMEONE ON THEIR SIDE.

and the Republicans are all about the rich and oil and poisoning the planet! I know this because the MSM tells me so! Evil Republicans! Angelic Dems!

The Democrats in this state would tax me into poverty so that I had to go on welfare and prove how magnanimous they are.

The campaign slogan of Democrats for 2008 should be:

"Democrats: Making them poor, keeping them poor, and sucking everyone else dry."

Nothing that I've heard from any of the clowns currently running for President on the Democrat side of the aisle are persuading me to believe anything different.

Side, side note: Although I've talked many times about my business here on RedState, my family and I are not rich. My current bank account balance, for anyone who is interested, is exactly $433.65. I drive a 1987 Audi. I have no stock or other investments. I own no other real property. That's IT! That's all I have. All of the money I have ever had in this world is invested in this business, which I am struggling to build even as the liberals in this state work hand over fist to tax and fee it into impossibility while catering to illegal immigrants, and while their family members make nice with socialist dictators.

And people wonder why I hate them. Everyone should hate them. The whole country should revolt against them.

The title of my next blog post is going to be: "America Needs a Revolution" and it does.

Not after CBS and 60 Minutes got their hands on an Audi 5000 back in the mid 1980's.

I've been able to own Audis (which despite their flaws are fantastic cars) *only* because of CBS's Fake News report about "Unintended Acceleration" did so much damage to Audi in the American market that they thought seriously for several years of folding up shop here and decamping for Parts Elsewhere. Dealerships closed by the dozen and you could buy a $40,000 car for $4,000 or less.

My 1987 Audi 5000CS Turbo Quattro has less than 65,000 miles on the odometer, all original, and it is one of *the finest* cars I've ever driven.

I paid $1,500 for it on a used-car lot in Chicago. That's how much of a favor CBS did to everyone interested in "fake but accurate" stories back in the 1980s, a grand tradition that Dan Rather is now taking umbrage at having been canned for!

One side effect of that cataclysm, however, is that a very determined bunch of people who had taken the massive resale hit got together and decided to fight by banding together. In many ways, they saved the brand during its darkest days in the North American market.

If anyone would like to know the URL you can visit to join this group (who hail from all points of the political compass, so I won't post it here) feel free to email me. Let's put it this way: they are mostly intelligent, well-educated people, many of whom aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, and they know these cars down to the last torque value on the various and sundry nuts and bolts. After 60 Minutes did its hit job, they did more than anyone else to keep Audi alive in the U.S.

And now Audi makes and sells some of the finest cars in the U.S. market, bar none.

I get almost all my parts (I don't mind mentioning a parts supplier) from Force5 Automotive in New Hampshire and from Blaufergnugen in Wisconsin. I do most of the repair work on the car myself, and I've got the scars on my knuckles and the dog-eared Bentley factory repair manual to prove it.

The Type 44 MC1 2.22l I5 5-speed turbo quattros are fantastic cars. Big, but still relatively light, great mileage, fun, safe, fast, AWD, etc., etc.

And of course, only rich people drive them.

did you choose to locate your business in Taxachusetts?

This isn't a rhetorical question; I'd really like to know. I've always wondered what keeps businesses in places that are obviously hostile to ----business.

We've traded our National Sovereignty for cheap roofing and yardwork.

I had no choice, I was between a rock and a hard place. My parents live here after having moved about 8 years ago from New Jersey. To make a long, depressing story short, after I spent a dozen years of my life as a lefty/liberal in Chicago, terminated the relationship with the woman I had intended to marry (and gave up my undergraduate degree at [Insert prestigious university] for, and wasted a quarter of a million dollars on because I was a male feminist who believed he was a privileged white male who should work to support a woman's education)...I finally woke up. But I didn't have many options at that point. And I needed to be closer to people who actually cared about me, not their agendas.

On the brighter side of things, we did get lucky because we had a golden opportunity to buy a building large enough to house the equipment we needed and one that would bring in a little rental income to help offset the property taxes (which is all our rental income does). So I took all the money I had left, liquidated everything I owned, moved here, and sunk every penny into Starting Over.

There's business here, if you work to get it. I think we're going to do very well in the long run; but like any startup it's a LOT of work and this State's anti-business, anti-property, anti-everything-but-what-Ted-Kennedy-wants attitude doesn't make it any easier.

It's very often said, and always with a painful smile, that Massachusetts isn't a state -- it's a COMMONWEALTH. Once you've lived here for a while, you realize the difference. I personally think the main reason is that it makes it impossible for anyone except established political families to run the place: nobody will ever be able to succeed and possibly threaten their power without their express consent.

But the people here like it that way...

I guess it's pretty specific to you, but understandable.

In reading McCullough's biography of John Adams, I picked up on the distinctive use of "Commonwealth," but not living there it is still foreign to me.

We've traded our National Sovereignty for cheap roofing and yardwork.

I'm referring to this state's "progressive" excise taxation policy, in which you pay 10% of the cost of the item in excise taxes for everything you buy. The clear function of it is to skim an immediate 10% off the top of everything you purchase and hand it over to the state government. That's one of the main reasons I don't buy new equipment: I've built my business with used machinery that I purchased through bargain-basement auctions and fixed myself, or else I lease it.

Otherwise I couldn't afford to pay the excise taxes, and I'd have to be a government employee to survive, which is what a lot of people in this state think is what everyone should do anyway.

The whole country will go this way if people don't wise up soon and stop the insanity.

Addendum:

One of the things the state government does in Massachusetts to enable their scheme to continue without inciting people to have a tax revolt or thrown the bums out of office is that they practice the standard psychological technique used by domestic-violence perpetrators since time immemorial:

Twice a year, they decide to stop beating you up and have one or two days as a "tax holiday" in which you can purchase items without paying sales tax on them. This keeps 95% of the people in the state from losing their minds and coming back for more the other 363 days of the year.

There isn't a single police officer with a police cruiser in New York State that cannot discover to whom exactly a specific vehicle is supposed to be registered to (and whether or not they have a valid license) just by running the plate.

Eliot Spitzer is not telling anyone that every police officer in New York State can ascertain at a glance whether a car and its driver are illegal or not. There is no "bringing them out of the shadows" -- they're right there in plain sight. Spitzer is doing it because he doesn't want to enforce the law. Period. And by doing it in New York State he wants to make sure that nobody else in this area of the country enforces the law ever again, either.

I know that if I had access to the same data that my local police have when it comes to license plates, registration and driver's licenses I could round up a couple of hundred illegal immigrants driving without licenses in Boston within 24 hours. My local police knew my license had been suspended in Illinois because of technicality within *2 days*. All the cop had to do was run the plate.

I didn't even know my license had been suspended, even though I left Illinois a forwarding address. That's how fast it happened.

Instead, Spitzer wants to make them "legal."

That's all there is to it.

Nobody tell me that they can't do it in Chicago or any other large city, either, because I used to live in Chicago and one of the premiere ways the city raises money is by enforcing City Sticker fees based on vehicle tags.

If you park your car on a street -- any street -- in Chicago and you don't have a valid City Sticker referenced to your license plate, you can expect your car to get booted and towed. Same thing if you have unpaid parking tickets or outstanding fees to the Illinois Department of State.

In fact, they have it down to such a science in Chicago that they don't even use police officers to enforce the law any more: they hire civil servants to drive around in cargo vans with a computer that runs all the plates on a street, entire neighborhoods at a time, looking for outstanding fees, unpaid tickets, missing City stickers, etc., etc.

They boot cars on streets in Chicago an entire neigborhood at a time and regularly tow them within 24 hours unless all the fees are paid. They know exactly, precisely, down to the individual car on an individual street in an individual ward, exactly which car belongs to whom.

New York State could put all of these people in jail if they wanted to, but Eliot Spitzer does not want to even *think* about that approach, because he knows too much.

determine the immigration status of the driver or registered owner. The law enforcement databases STILL can't talk to the ICE/State Department databases, and I believe it is simply because the federal government doesn't want that to happen. God knows they were quick about integrating databases for child support enforcement and domestic violence laws.

In Vino Veritas

Somewhere in the world, a couple of big databases are missing a JOIN query, in other words. Which could take as little as 30 seconds to write.

That's about all it will take (if it even does at this point...I have my doubts.)

Is that the data is all there, but in order to write the query that will join the data and make it useful for one thing or another mysteriously costs hundreds of millions of dollars, naturally.

has more access to information about you than your state's child support enforcement agency, and they did that almost overnight and with very, very little built in security. Very low level, poorly qualified people have tremendous access to all that info and more than a few of them abuse it - fired my fair share of them over the years.

To access the law enforcement databases you have to be a commissioned law enforcement officer or as in the case of admin support staff or IT people pass the same background check as a law enforcement officer. To access the same data in a child support agency, you have to have a HS diploma or GED and be able to fog a mirror. Priorities!
In Vino Veritas

The problem is NOT that the data doesn't exist. The problem is that the politicians have agendas about which people will be able to use that data, and why. But there's no problem insofar as the raw information is concerned: that's the greatest sham that's ever been perpetrated on the American public.

I keep hearing about how the government agencies are underfunded in terms of IT...

...I am underfunded in terms of IT.

They, on the other hand, make a political stunt out of being "underfunded" for obvious reasons. Nobody should believe it.

Did you know that you can buy the software that will give YOU, the owner, the capability to address and carrier-route sort every single deliverable address in the United States of America?

It's easy. Almost anyone can do it. You don't even have to be a cop. Don't tell me New York State can't do it. They're lying through their teeth.

Postalsoft.

And Rudy Giuliani (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Mitt Romney) should know exactly how fine-grained the net is when it comes to the data law-enforcement agencies have on exactly who is driving around in cars all over the fruited plain.

I'm waiting for Giuliani to either endorse or refute Spitzer's plan. My guess is that he'll talk in generalities and keep mum on the subject. It's a fight he cannot win.

there another case recently of an illegal immigrant (who had been deported a few times) suffocating and killing a local. I believe it was on the radio last week.

108 degrees - too hot for me.

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"Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm." -- James Madison

starts at 115.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

"open warfare."

I agree that it's bound to happen sooner or later if our elected officials don't enforce the laws they or their counterparts have already passed to protect us.

A certain group that Senator Robert Byrd is familiar with didn't spring up out of nowhere, for no reason.

I'm far more concerned about that than I am about al Qaeda.

We've traded our National Sovereignty for cheap roofing and yardwork.

as long as your NOT an illegal-alien or Al Qaeda.

VERY true if an American "group" does form out of frustration with government failings, this country will ROCK n ROLL.
Much more organized stronger and with a purpose, said group would make Al Qaeda look like a Boy Scout troop.

issues? also Richardson of NM?

but they both suck.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

mbecker

So is the ghost of JD Hayward about to re-appear?

I think I saw him on Fox or somewhere doing the talking head bit. Wondering if this issue and the growing angst over the illegal issue will bring him back.

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

his heart. He'll get time on Fox but he couldn't get elected dog catcher. He just tired everybody out.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

mbecker

But..but..but he was held up as such a bright light by the Tom Terrific Tancredo wing of the party. I think you are right however, read some of the press coverage leading up to the election he lost, he was and is a first class jerk from what I could tell.

What's he doing now days, back to selling carpet or something?

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

I've met JD on several occasions and know people who know him well. He's a heck of a nice guy. But he just comes across as a snake oil salesman. His replacement is just smooth as silk and was very well known so JD didn't get a "name bump".

Bottom line, people were just tired of being lectured to and harrangued by JD and booted him. I seriously doubt if his stance on immigration cost him a dozen votes.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

is a frequent radio talk show fill in host

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

mbecker/game

He's got a radio show I assume in Phoenix, 570 or something on your AM dial, which I have no clue is a 50 watt or mega watt station.

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Proud member of the Barry Goldwater wing of the party !

drive time for KFYI 550. Enough power to get its signal up 7000 feet and 140 miles from Phoenix to Flagstaff. Lots of static here, though. I don't listen unless in PHX.

We've traded our National Sovereignty for cheap roofing and yardwork.

reporter on Phx TV before he ran for Congress in '94. He also backed out on a 3 term limit.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

I fear this is only the beginning of the end of the "American Way" as we used to know it. It's being redefined at this very moment. Even the might Roman Empire fell after 400 years or so. Things change, I know that, but this change is dangerous. We can only hope DHS or someone steps in.