>>My intention was to get Mike's attention, not yours - we've had quite a bit recently, hadn't we?
>
>Ah, but I started the thread. I think Mike and I are pretty much on the same page and he wouldn't mind if I responded.

But you don't own it - and I didn't want this to look like I'm waiting for you around every corner. Besides, it was his emphasis on ILLEGAL that caught my attention. For a moment it sounded like everything else is bearable, this is the only burning problem there is.

>Sounds like a great topic for a new thread. Except that part about the scapegoat at hand. In my area it's very evident that it's a problem. I think Virginia has about half of what we have, but I live in a more concentrated area. I know, move, right? No, this is my home, and was long before it became a hotbed for illegals. Gotta say, the last graph I looked at had CA and TX really throwing the curve. Good thing it's mostly liberals in CA, but I wonder how all those ten-gallon hatters are taking it in TX? I guess I should feel fortunate I don't live in a border state. Well, not one where anyone is crossing directly into anyway.

But NC is hosting many businesses of agricultural persuasion which seem to be more-than-equal opportunity employers, as do a couple of other states that you mention. Still doesn't mean that III is the most pressing issue and not a scapegoat at all. Or a red herring - pick your metaphor.

Blaming the foreigners is the favorite demagoguery of every borderline fascist party I know of - from Le Pen's Something Front in France, to Jörg Heider in Austria to Šešelj's Radicals in Serbia to Zhirinovsky's party in Russia. That's their favorite tactic - find an isolated group to blame everything on, and forge unity of your ranks against them, i.e. on a negative issue when you have no positive ones to rally around. I'm not saying that whoever is picking these headlines is willingly oriented in the same orientation; the same trick may be at work for other reasons. And while the whole thing may be true in the case of your 'hood, it doesn't mean it's such a burning problem elsewhere.

The titles of your threads do show that you are getting quite angry at the issue, and probably also at us who don't share the view that it's the most pressing problem of our times.

As to starting a new thread about what I think are those problems, I would if I know where. I mean, where to start.