Something tells me it won't. She wouldn't put the ad out if the very expensive, smart ad people she hired didn't think it would work. To be against vilifying illegal immigrants is very unpopular, and even more unpopular is treating them like anything even resembling actual citizens. Racism in the form of hating and being terrified of illegal immigrants, even legal immigrants, seems to be very much in style these days. It's downright sick, but this is the continent we live on.

How is it racist to want to stop the crime and drug cartel problem in Mexico from spilling over into the US which is currently is doing? The drug cartel are Mexicans but that doesn't mean your racist to recognize that fact and portray it visually in a commercial.

A. Do you recognize that there is a serious problem right now in Mexico that even their government is having a problem with?

B. Do you agree that some of this is spilling over into the United States?

Yep, I'm with you Rebecca. If politicians had taken care of this issue a long time ago we wouldn't have this ugly problem today. Vilifying an entire group of people is how Hitler got started.

The problem is that when you step up immigration (meaning you make further restrictions) a simultaneous effort happens on behalf of those who would enter the country illegally to escalate. If you were to build the boarder fence, and let's just say hypothetically it's tall enough to prevent people form scaling, and let's say we permanently station national guard troops at the boarder and double or triple boarder security forces, all that will end up happening is "illegals" will start finding new ways to get across the boarder. It's the same thing with the drug war (and in reality crime in general). You step up enforcement on the law's side and criminals will escalate on their side. It's a cat and mouse game- such is the nature of crime and law. Now do not mistake what I'm saying here as necessarily saying I am pro-amnesty or no boarders. I'm just saying the process individuals such as Sharon Angle have taken (and I'm deriving this from her stated proposals) really aren't going to solve the problem. They will end up forcing more people to try to enter by sea or under ground or by air. And that increases the threat of terrorism as well as the threat of death from those trying to cross the boarder. What we need to do, at least as far as I can tell:

1. Step up our reconstruction and international aid efforts to countries like Mexico and Honduras. Mexico and many Central American countries have asked for US military, CIA, and FBI assistance in locating and breaking down drug cartels. Most of Mexico's step up against cartels over the past decade has been a direct result of pressure from our country. We need to keep up on the pressure for Mexico to crack down on crime, as well as keep up our end of the deal by funneling increased money for infrastructure and law enforcement assistance. The majority of people who flee countries like Mexico and Honduras do so to flee poverty, crime, or corruption. We can't stop poverty in it's entirety but we can help rebuild infrastructure in that country and help reduce crime and corruption. Until we find a solution that involves the countries that send immigrants across our boarders nothing and I mean nothing we do on our end will stop the flow of illegal immigrants. It has to be a joint effort.

2. The solution we need to find on our side needs to be something in which we're able to screen immigrants for prior convictions or for current crimes in the US/Mexico (or other country of origin). The vast, vast majority of people who come across the boarder are absolutely no threat and there is absolutely no reason to not grant them citizenship. There is a smaller, but dangerous, percentage who cross the boarder in order to flee Mexican or American government prosecution (this time I mean justly; as in the person committed a crime and doesn't want to serve jail time) or as part of gang and drug crimes.
A. More than likely we have to end the drug war. I think we should start with marijuana and see how that affects crime. More than likely there is no real world solution without the elimination of drug prohibition.
B. We're going to need to focus on inner city infrastructure, especially in places like Los Angeles. It's within the more impoverished areas that people turn to crimes and specifically towards gangs. When that happens the drug war steps up, counter gangs step up, and that then drags people in from across Mexico's boarder. The criminals Sharon is referring to are primarily all individuals who participate in gang wars and gangs do not recognize US and Mexico boarders. Taking away drugs will deplete the resources for these gangs, but until we step up reconstruction and infrastructure within our own country we can't possibly eliminate the threat. Law enforcement needs to be stepped up too in this sense.
C. The remaining percentage are criminals who utilize how porous our boarders are to avoid prosecution. So either he/she commits a crime in the US then flees to Mexico or vise versa. We need to design some system where we can take in and even encourage the good immigrants to come to America, while simultaneously making a system that helps us track who is crossing our boarders. A good way to do this would be to mandate that every person be finger printed and have their blood taken and put on the FBI's national registry (you would have to make that apply to every American, not just immigrants, as anyone could cross either boarder). It would also mean putting pressure on Mexico to create such a system within their country for the same reasons.

3. All of this of course costs money and that is probably the biggest obstacle of immigration reform. I do not know how to solve the money problem. Potentially if you legalized drugs you could mandate that all drugs be produced legally by the federal government and then use that revenue to pay for every other measure. Perhaps you do a combination. Have the government and private business provide drugs, with private business being taxed a small percentage, and use the revenue from both to support such projects.

The overall focus of Sharon Angle's add is pretty racist in that if she really wanted to talk about the issue of boarder security she could do so without featuring images of scary brown people threatening white people. The fact that she blatantly skews an add to only show disparaged white people and menacing brown people is racist and it's intended to invoke racist empathy's. People who put such adds together know what they are doing and do so intentionally. The intent of this add is very clear. You are correct that the issue of boarder security needs to be talked about seriously (and for my part I hope I've initiated a discussion to do just that). This add, however, doesn't attempt to seriously address boarder security. It attempts to inflame racist emotions and that's all it's meant to do.

You can write all you want about solutions to the border problems. That will be up to Congress and the President to decide.

The focus here is on Sharron Angle. She is a racist and makes no bones about it.

Sharron Angle must not be elected to the U.S. Senate. I am hopeful that the majority of Nevada voters are smart and wise enough to know this.

Not to be rude here but did you read the last paragraph to my post at all?

The overall focus of Sharon Angle's add is pretty racist in that if she really wanted to talk about the issue of boarder security she could do so without featuring images of scary brown people threatening white people. The fact that she blatantly skews an add to only show disparaged white people and menacing brown people is racist and it's intended to invoke racist empathy's. People who put such adds together know what they are doing and do so intentionally. The intent of this add is very clear. You are correct that the issue of boarder security needs to be talked about seriously (and for my part I hope I've initiated a discussion to do just that). This add, however, doesn't attempt to seriously address boarder security. It attempts to inflame racist emotions and that's all it's meant to do.

Mickey, you seem to be talking out of both sides of your mouth. First you state:

It's the same thing with the drug war (and in reality crime in general). You step up enforcement on the law's side and criminals will escalate on their side.

Then you say about the drug cartel in Mexico:

Mexico...(has) asked for US military, CIA, and FBI assistance in locating and breaking down drug cartels...We need to keep up on the pressure for Mexico to crack down on crime...

We can better guard the border with physical barriers and better technology making it much more difficult (in some places there's no deterrent at all) and greatly reduce the flow.

Worry and anxiety has long been used in ads. Just look at the one on Rove and the Chamber of Commerce, I lady in a dark parking garaged gets robbed. You say the ad is racist, how do you portray Mexican drug cartel members, as Asians?

Other than Angle strange rambling in front of a Latino school group, what evidence do you have to say that she is racist? She is using the ad not to say here are the solutions but to say the solution has not been in office for the last 25 plus years. Which is a legitimate point.

The vast, vast majority of people who come across the boarder are absolutely no threat and there is absolutely no reason to not grant them citizenship.

What a naive or stupid statement. If people started showing up at your house who were no threat, would you invite them to stay? I seriously doubt it. Why? Because you can't operate a home like that neither can you operate your home country.

A country has to have a restricted and orderly way of bringing immigrants into its citizenry. And people wanting residency should have to follow the process. And when they don't you can't reward them. That is not being racist.

Mexico condemn Arizona for doing the same thing Mexico is doing on their Southern border. Why? Because it benefits Mexico for it citizens to come to America illegally and send money back into their country.

It does not benefit Mexico for people to enter its country illegally. Neither does it overall benefit us.

Any time you step up law enforcement you run the risk of escalation. That's how crime works. That does not mean there is no trade off factor. Certain times de-escalation is the path to go, other times escalation. Stepping up pressure on the drug cartels helps not reduce the crime rate, but helps the government to gain more security. In theory that allows people to step up infrastructure building. It's the exact same theory as counterinsurgency. And yes, when you step up the enforcement presence violence goes up. It does it everywhere; but the other hand to that may be more room to construct and stabilize and thus, in the long term, make things better. Like I said it's a toss up and a complicated issue. It's not a one size fits all solution. And in the case of our boarders it will likely not be worth the possible escalation in death and violence- which was the whole point I was getting at.

Every option you (and I) put on the table has a consequence. A boarder fence will not prevent people from getting into our country. All a boarder fence will do is force the immigrant to find a different route into our country. That may prove to be a slight inconvenience, but all such policies will ultimately solve will be a. costing us millions more than what is necessary b. force the immigrant to take more extreme (and potentially violent) measures to get across and c. force the immigrant to take riskier measures (which may net out killing more people than as is already happening). If you were to build a boarder fence and want that fence to be secured you'd have to employ hundreds of thousands if not millions of police, boarder patrol, and even potentially national guardsmen and station them along the fence in order to prevent people from getting in. You'd also have to expand ICE in order to process the increased amounts of people being detained. All of these options cost money. A boarder solution of this magnitude would require one of the largest expansions of the federal government (and state governments along the boarder) in US history. And since such solutions don't look at resolving the issues that lead to immigration, you'd have to doll out hundreds of billions of dollars every year in order to maintain that system. It is unsustainable and therefore completely impractical.

I explained thoroughly how the add is racist; I'm almost compelled here not to retort to that because you're either willfully ignoring the argument I put before or are unwilling to self-examine your own prejudices. I can't decide that for you, only you know. I'll try explaining it again: Her advertisement does absolutely nothing to address the issue of boarder security. All the advertisement does is show images of brown people menacing white people and attack Harry Reid. With how large of an African American and Hispanic population Nevada has in the state Angle hopes to represent, if she wanted to go in the direction of negative advertising without stoking racial tensions she could have just as easily chosen to show mean menacing brown people juxtaposed against innocent looking brown people. The fact that she did not is intentional and meant to stoke racial fears among white voters about Mexicans.

Also please go back and read my comments. I did not call Sharon Angle a racist, I said that the add itself was racist and meant to stoke racial tensions. Talk about twisting words. Also for someone who complained earlier about negative advertising it seems hypocritical to me that you'd take a stance defending her add (if only for it's negative quotient alone). If you wanted to make an add talking about boarder security there are ways that you can do it in which a. you don't have to show pictures of brown people (remember in her state that's generally not a good idea being that Hispanic voters make up a significant portion of her electorate) and b. you don't have to do it with menacing music juxtaposedto white actors and phrases like "it's clear who Harry Reid's on the side of...and it's not you" (the implication of course being he's pro Mexicans anti whites).

I didn't say not wanting to reward someone amnesty was racist. You're putting words in my mouth, which is rather annoying. I even said that I myself am not in favor of amnesty. So I'd be racist against brown people? So I must really hate myself then. The point I was getting at is that none of the propositions she has made are realistic (like the boarder fence). But I never once said her propositions were racist. The vast majority of people coming into this country are no threat. You may want to believe they are, but they aren't. The vast majority do not commit crimes, do not destroy neighborhoods, or any of the other shinwaht'zu that gets spread about immigration. If that were any bit true the Irish and Jews and Chinese would've destroyed us a long time ago (which I might point out this immigration discussion is along the same lines of the arguments made wayyyy back in the day against those immigrants). Denying citizens who are here to work and live honest lives citizenship only ends up shooting yourself in the foot. Why? Because then you have to doll out the millions upon millions to catch these people- whereas by legalizing these citizens you can force them to pay taxes and give back into the system they'd otherwise be taking from (without paying) as illegals.

You cannot solve this problem by pointing guns at people's heads or by creating a revolving door system of deportation. People are going to do what they need to do to survive. We as a country do not have the resources or the man power to secure our boarders in the way that Sharon Angle (and others) are proposing. There are other solutions out there that need to be discussed seriously. You can't just shut down because of your personal feelings about immigration. I grew up all over the southwest and I know how embedded of an issue this is. If you're from there, trust me I can sympathize. But irrational conclusions to real world problems won't solve anything.

I never, ever said I was against securing our boarders either. I just spent nearly 2 pages describing how we can reduce and ultimately eliminate this problem in a realistic fashion. To construe otherwise tells me you either didn't read what I had to say or didn't care to consider it.

I did not call Sharon Angle a racist, I said that the add itself was racist and meant to stoke racial tensions.

The ad did not create itself so the ad cannot be racist. In your scenario Angle is either racist or chose to portray people and her message in a racist manner. Since you say you are not calling her racist, it must be the later.

So that goes back to my question, how do you portray the fact that there is a crime and drug problem in Mexico (unlike anything in the US) and it is bleeding over the border. I guess you could do it without using any actors/people and just state it but how is that any less racist in your opinion?

No, she is not presenting solutions in this ad, she is pointing out the fact that Reid has not provided any. Some ads are positives and some are negative. You could make the argument a positive ad with solutions would be more beneficial but that's a judgment call.

I think you and I have two very different opinions on how to solve the illegal immigration problem. I do know that most of those who cross the border are not "bad" people and do not pose a criminal threat. But why should they be put ahead of those who want to come here and are following the process we defined?

The solution we need to find on our side needs to be something in which we're able to screen immigrants for prior convictions or for current crimes in the US/Mexico (or other country of origin).

We have such a solution. See www.path2usa.com - it is the process all those wanting to become citizens should follow. What is wrong with this solution?

The vast, vast majority of people who come across the boarder are absolutely no threat and there is absolutely no reason to not grant them citizenship.

How is this not amnesty? Are you suggesting we pose a fine for this citizenship or that those applying first spend 6 months in jail? I don't get it.