Okay, here’s part of an interview between a right-wing commentator (RC) and a left-wing politician (LP). See if you can guess who’s who here (via Nathan Newman) :

RC: The U.S. population now?primarily due to immigrants and their children coming in?is estimated to grow to over 400 million by mid-century. Would that have an adverse impact on the environment?

LP: We don?t have the absorptive capacity for that many people. Over 32 million came in, in the ?90s, which is the highest in American history.

RC: What would you do about it?

LP: We have to control our immigration. We have to limit the number of people who come into this country illegally.

RC: What level of legal immigration do you think we should have per year?

LP: First of all, we have to say what is the impact on African-Americans and Hispanic Americans in this country in terms of wages of our present stance on immigration? It is a wage-depressing policy, which is why the Chambers of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, Tyson Foods, and the Wall Street Journal like it. The AFL-CIO has no objection to it because they think they can organize the illegal workers?

RC: They switched.

LP: ?because they have been so inept at organizing other workers.

Figured it out? Check out the extended entry for the answers.

If you guessed Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader, you’re correct! Who would have thought that the perfect liberal was an immigration hawk and a vocal critic of the AFL-CIO?

To be fair, like with most of the left-wing candidates I mock, Ralph had some really great things to say. Here’s my favorite bit :

PB: Can we move on to taxes? Reagan cut the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent in terms of personal income taxes. Clinton raised it to 39.6. Bush has cut it back to 35 percent. What do you think is the maximum income-tax rate that should be imposed on wage earners?

RN: Zero under $100,000. Now you got to ask me how I am going to make ?

PB: What is the rate above $100,000? What is the top rate?

RN: Then you have a graduated rate. Thirty-five percent, in that range, for the top rate. It comes down to the loopholes. When it was 70 percent, did you ever meet anybody who paid 70 percent?

Now, where would I make it up? This is where the creativity comes in. I would move the incidence of taxation, first, from work to wealth. So I would keep the estate tax, number one.

PB: You restore the estate tax to 55 percent?

RN: That is a little extreme.

PB: That is where Bush has it, 55, and he is cutting it down gradually to zero. What do you think it should be?

RN: Again, 35 percent.

PB: Would this be on all estates?

RN: No. Estates above $10 million.

PB: Ralph, you are not going to raise much money with this tax.

RN: There will still be a tax on smaller estates. I think all estates over, say, $500,000 should pay some tax. The estate tax as a whole raises about $32 billion a year, but the thing is the loopholes. Buffett, as an example, won?t pay because all of it is going to his foundation.

I think we should have a very modest wealth tax. I agree with the founder of the Price Club, who thinks it should be 1 percent.

PB: One percent of your wealth each year would be turned over to the federal government?

RN: Right. Then the third shift is why don?t we tax things we like the least? We should tax polluters. We should tax gambling. We should tax the addictive industries that are costing us so much and luring the young into alcoholism and tobacco and drugs. And we should tax, above all, stock and currency speculation.

PB: A short-term capital gains tax?

RN: Like a sales tax. If you go to a store and buy furniture, you pay 6, 7, or whatever percent. You buy 1,000 shares of General Motors, you don?t pay anything. So what we are doing is taxing food and clothing but not the purchase of stocks, bonds, derivatives, and currency speculation. A quarter-of-a-cent tax will produce hundreds of billions of dollars a year because of the volatility. You remember the days when 3 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange was a big day? Now it is 1.5 billion shares.

The point is this: work should be taxed the least. Then you move to wealth, and then you move to things we do not like. And you will have more than enough to replace the taxes of under $100,000 income and to provide for universal health insurance and decent public transit and to repair the public-works infrastructure.

Ahhh…that’s some of the good ol’ liberalism. Of course, if you think President Ralph would be able to actually implement anything like this, then you need to put down your crack pipe and watch some Schoolhouse Rock.