I'll briefly give an example of a serious problem involved in opposing illegal immigration and amnesty.

Jane Timm (@janestreet) of MSNBC offers "Meet the Grover Norquist of the immigration debate" ( peekURL.com/zwdNC4B ), a hit piece on Roy Beck of Numbers USA.

Beck responds here [1].

Numbers USA does great work and I'm endlessly grateful that they're around [7/6/17 UPDATE: A few years ago I changed my mind completely about them, see the last link]. However, Beck's response isn't exactly how I'd do things. His response is good as far as it goes, but he's fighting a losing battle and from a defensive position: more people outside his group will see Timm's piece than Beck's response, and his response will have little or no impact on how Timm or those like her do things in the future.

If you don't know how I'd respond, see the posts linked from the topics page or see some conversations I've tried to start. I'd attempt to undercut Timm to her audience and send a message to the others. That's something that very few other people are willing or able to do.

The serious problem is that I would get very little help with that. There's no united front against illegal immigration, no large number of people willing to do things in smart ways that use leverage. There are, however, those like the Tea Parties. They aren't able or willing to help me oppose illegal immigration; they aren't a group that I'm able to reason with. One of the main reasons I oppose them is because they've consistently tried to undercut me (see the last link) [1]. Those who have the ability to reason with them are using them for their own personal or public agendas, not involving immigration.

Because of the above, those like Timm will freely be able to keep printing hit pieces and pro-illegal immigration propaganda that many people will fall for. That makes amnesty more likely and will enable more illegal immigration. If you oppose amnesty and illegal immigration, work to do something about the problem discussed above.

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[1] For a tangible example, many Teaparty types hyped the "#OpSLAM" effort on Twitter, which was started by @GregWHoward. In Howard's words, that effort seeks to "shut down lib media" by boycotting those companies that advertise on MSNBC. The effort is an attempt to silence rather than debate, and it's exactly like something Van Jones and Brave New Films do with Fox News. It's also not going to be effective: Campbell Soup isn't likely to change their advertising based on what a very small number of people decide to do and those in the teaparties sphere just don't have the abilities of those like Jones and BNF. They are, however, delusional enough to think that their effort would succeed. My attempts to get Howard and others to help me with something effective was rejected by Howard (who puts disliking me ahead of helping me help him) and ignored by others taking part.

[2] numbersusa . com/content/nusablog/beckr/december-4-2012/msnbc-profile-neglects-influence-barbara-jordan-commission-numbersusa