Go to a BLM protest and shout "BLM is a hate group!", then find yourself in cuffs being dragged away.

BLM and ANTIFA (democrat hate groups) can burn the US flag and trample it, but if one is caught desecrating a BLM flag, they will promptly be arrested.

 Just imagine a group of people wearing red MAGA hats shutting down a highway or bridge, how long before the paddy wagons show up and these people are incarcerated being charged with multiple crimes?

  We are now under full blown lawfare, in which depending upon your ideology, you will be granted constitutional rights or charged with a series of laws (whether the law applies or not) then bankrupted.

  So yes, you are correct, free speech is no more.   Just look at the "tik tok" law just passed by congress.  It will not affect Tik Tok in how it was sold, but gives the government a huge swath of power to ban outlets it disagrees with.

  Oh, and we were sold down the river with the FISA reauthorization.

Let's say 99% of illegals are just looking for a better life, are good people, want a job, and will end up paying taxes and eventually assimilating.

And let's say 1% are criminal psychopaths, which is the actual estimate in the general population. Assume for the sake of argument that the rate of psychopathy among illegals is no higher than that among U.S. citizens.

Almost 7.3 million illegals crossed the border just during the Biden administration, as of February, 2024.

7,300,000 x .01 = 73,000.

So we have 73,000 newly arrived criminally inclined psychopaths just in the past 3 years.

So the argument that illegals are simply looking to escape poverty and be accepted with open arms is technically correct 99% of the time, but doesn't hold water if you are trying to defend the idea that we should just let them all in. A process of vetting would weed out those with a violent criminal history, ties to terrorist organizations, or no discernible job skills meaning they'd just be a parasite.  Without control over who enters our country, we aren't a country; no point in even having borders.

I also like to point out the hypocrisy of the left when it comes to illegal aliens vs gun control.

They say that illegals are "mostly peaceful" and looking for work to improve their lives.  Only a few of them are criminals.  You shouldn't punish the majority because of a small minority.

But when it comes to gun control, even though most gun owners are law abiding and peaceful, the left wants to take guns away from everyone because a few are criminally inclined or mentally ill.

The only difference is that gun ownership is  constitutionally protected and legal but illegally entering the country is not.

China and Russia appear to be the only powers on the planet that pose any credible military threat to the US. The southern border presents a lower priority threat.

Totally disagree!  The hot war threat from China and Russia is dormant. They aren’t actively invading us. And their nuclear capabilities, along with ours, make them a theoretical future threat more than an immediate actual one because of mutual assured destruction. Yes it could happen but odds that it will on any one day are very low.

The invasion on the southern border on the other hand is currently active, it’s already happening and there are known terrorists and criminals among them entering the country that have no such restraints as MAD.  The likelihood that they are planning a set of multiple 9/11s is very high.

  "Military aged" is a meaningless scare phrase.   That cadre has been entering the US for work since the Mexican Revolution.

Not by the millions. Not even close!  And historically they’ve all been Mexicans. Hard working Catholics for the most part. Now they are from all over the world including radical Muslims and Chinese on an unknown mission. Erosion of our culture including our form of government can very easily happen from within with this massive invasion.  This is a much bigger immediate threat than missiles from Russia or China.

I am for immigration. We need young men. But we must vet them and they must come legally.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We’ve learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.
Ronald Reagan, (6 JUNE 1984)

[Edit to add: I am not a Republican, but the above quote indicates that Lucifer isn't one either.]

 Nope, I’m a conservative.   You obviously don’t know the difference. 

 Reagan didn’t write that in defense of a dictatorial country.  That’s another part of this you don’t get. 

 The neocons have pushed this regime change garbage around the world, and not once has it worked out.  And now we have a government using a third world country being ruled by a petty dictator as a huge money laundering operation, and the US borrowing billions to give to them with zero accountability, and handing the tax payers the bill for the principal and interest.   

 You recently posted a thread showing how the debt service on borrowed money is out of control, yet here you are wearing your Ukraine lapel pin cheering more billions to be given to them. 

 Yes, I’m a conservative and damn proud of it. But the typical liberal will hide behind such things as “moderate” or even call themselves a “libertarian”.  But the liberal always comes out. 

RDS

He would be good but he does not have what Trump has. 

1. The drive, whether it's narcissistic self-aggrandizement or something else, to risk everything (prison, wealth, life even) for his cause.  I don't see DeSantis withstanding that level of persecution; I feel like he'd cave to the establishment.  He has a more normal sense of self-preservation.

2. The ability to get the message to the people that his cause is the people. Trump's cause is not ideology, it's us. The feeling from DeSantis is that his cause is conservatism. Nothing wrong with that, it's better than leftism, but it is still a remote abstract rather than down in the trenches with us.

3. The foreign business experience in different cultures which is part of why Trump kept us out of war. The other part is the very thing he's criticized for: He's so crazy he'll pop off WW3, which is the very thing that prevents it. Putin was unsure if Trump would bomb Moscow like he threatened if he invaded Ukraine, so he didn't do it.  DeSantis might do fine in foreign affairs but right now it is a total unknown, and he lacks the "crazy" aspect that is part of Trump's arsenal.

4. Billions of dollars. DeSantis is not wealthy enough to be immune from monetary bribery or threats.

DeSantis would be fine in a normal world as would many others, but right now we don't have a normal world, we have an immediate threat of an irreversible oligarchical hardening that puts the elite first and the regular citizen last. We need more than a good leader, we need a unique warrior for this. Trump is RARE.  We're not gonna get another one in our lifetime.

Joe cracks me up. “Solar is a bad word because liberals like it.” Hahahaha!

First, solar is not a bad word. It works great for guys in off-grid settings who don’t have huge household power needs.

I’m in a sunny part of our state, and even with rooftops covered with solar panels people can’t run their homes with the power produced, much less charge their cars. The solar panel homeowners sell the trickle of power to the utility company to put in the grid and then sell back to them.

We know a guy who spent $28,000 to put up the panels. Later he had to move, so never realized that investment in any sort of payback.  Plus, complaints are being lodged right and left against the solar panel installers. They’re grifters to a high degree. Reports of damage to roofs and failures to meet promised commitments for repairs and maintenance are common. Access to state and local government energy “rebates” and “incentives” is as tempting to grifters as all the other government largesse schemes. The companies set up in storefronts, make their killings, and vanish. And we the taxpayers and rate payers fund the government participation in this. So.

Have you ever seen the photos of massive solar farms demolished by hailstorms? Have you ever seen a solar panel boneyard? What are the panels made of, and how does their decomposition affect the earth and water?

Joe will say solar is a young industry and has great potential. True. He also doesn’t believe in mandates by stupid, invasive and controlling government entities. Great! Trouble is, our idiot governor has decreed that $89 million will be used to build EV chargers throughout the state. A state with grid problems. The same governor is banning use of natural gas for heating and cooking. He also is trying to eliminate ICE vehicles any way he can.  And we’re back where we started. Funneling everyone onto one source of energy, thus creating energy insecurity.

Multiple sources, strong sources, recoverable and sustainable sources. Without a variety of ways to produce and access energy, we are weakened.