Nov 15 2006
Republicans Losing It
Update: Tony Blankley takes a stab at how to proceed as well. Let me say this about conservatism as I see it. It stands for the sanctity of life and the sanctity of this country. Everything else flows from there. Small government? Freedom to live your life. It is not enough to have life, we must be able to express our lives to our individual talents. That is why we strive for minimal government. Enough government to protect and help those in dire straights, but not one that dictates to us what to do. That means Embryonic Stem Cell Research is not something acceptable under broad conservative principles. It is why a guest worker program is acceptable (pay for past digressions, but make a living here as a guest). It is why we cannot fall back from Iraq – we risk bringing the terrorist storm back to our shores. It is why we honor the those who defend this country and do not smear them. All we need to agree on is the broad principles and apply them with compromise among the conservative coalition to win majorities and make progress.
But to make this happen means the hard liners need to climb down off their diases and join the coalition as equals – not superiors. Everyone who is a conservative speaks from the passion of the heart about the sanctity of life and this country. That alone does not make their proposed solutions correct or right. It simply means their heart is in the right place. If we want to organize against rampant liberalism then it can be done as equals in a common cause. Otherwise it is a bunch of useless factions.
end update
It seems the Republicans in the House have decided to push for illegal immigrants to leave the country again.
Some Republicans have expressed reluctance to return Mr. Boehner to leadership after last week’s disastrous elections, and some are opposed to Mr. Pence for forging a compromise on immigration that critics dismissed as “amnesty.” Yesterday, Mr. Pence renounced those efforts.
“All those debates about compromise are a thing of the past,” he said in an interview with talk-radio host Laura Ingraham.
“I reject any form of amnesty, even if we’ve got border security,” he said. “I really reject the idea that people whose first act in this country was a violation of the law ought to be able to get right with the law without leaving the country.”
That’s it for me. You can ‘break the law’ by speeding. There are penalties in the comprehensive proposals, they just do not include ripping people from the homes and families and jobs as punishment. It seems the Reps are trying to punish illegal immigrants for their own screw ups and losses. Typical DC vendetta talk.
Reminds me of how all those brave arm chair warriors pounced on the Dubai Ports International company because they were Arab and Muslim based – a way to punish Arabs and Muslims for 9-11. Even though the company hails from one of our staunchest allies, the United Arab Emirites (UAE). The Rep and their talk show buddies accused these people of all sorts of conspiracies and hidden agendas, when the truth was the company had agreed to pay for state-of-the-art cargo inspection gear AT ALL THEIR PORTS. The company was willing to fund our outer defenses at ports feeding materials to this country. And the Reps decided to punish them in their fit of Rambo-esque play acting.
We have a war to focus on and these people want to spend our limited security forces rounding up people and throwing them over the border. Like I said – good riddence to the Republican House. If that is what they stand for I am out.
Update: In case anyone on the far right is even still listening, here is another analysis that illustrates why doing the same bad things will bring the same bad results. All of this need to punish illegal immigrants has only punished those calling for punishment. The illegal aliens are still here, they are still in an underground economy, there are those amongst them who are violent criminals who should be deported. The hard liners are the ones who lost – who are in essense being punished. When are they going to wake up and realize the punishment is not being applied where they wanted it to be?
OK, here’s the senario.
We legalize all the illegals here. We give them green cards (which are not really green) and we force all employers to pay them at least minimum wage, or the going wage rate for the job they are doing. $15.00 for a carpenter, $12.00 for a sheet rocker, $9.00 for lawn crews. So these companies that have been hiring illegal labor because they could get a carpenter for $8.00 an hour are no longer making a profit and they go out of business. Now the illegal who was making $8.00 an hour is out of a job. The business made a profit off illegal labor and can no longer do that and closed their doors. Now what? Do you think those illegals will return to their native country? Do you think they will find other jobs? Or do you think they will become a whole new segment of our poverty level socieity that is collecting social welfare? Or will they turn to crime?
And how about answering my question about how to handle those who have stolen someone’s Social Security number to be able to work? Is that also a violation of the law just as a speeding ticket? Or is that a federal offense?
Legalization, like welfare, is no answer. Enforcement is. You want to work in the U.S.? Well come on, but do it legally. If you cannot show respect for our law, no matter how small a law is, they how can we expect you to show respect for any other laws that we have?
Part of the requirement for citizenship is that the person has a working knowledge of reading, writing and speaking English. Then why are ballots printed in Spanish? And isn’t that discrimination against all those immigrants who speak Farsi? Or Cantonese? Or Najavo?
Your solutions, AJ, are not a cure. They are bandaids on a seething wound. Left untreated, it will become worse.
You tout how we have now agreed to build 700 miles of fence. Can you provide me with the bill that funds that fence?
It is not that there are no jobs in Mexico. Mexico just reported they currently have a shortage of farm workers and are importing Central Americans to do those jobs.
So here are some questions:
what do we do with all the newly made legal immigrants who are now out of a job because their employer cannot survive paying standard wages?
what do we do with all the illegals who stole someone else’s SS# in order to work?
how do we do background checks for criminal history when Mexico stated clearly it would not cooperate?
Apache, your analogy is quite apt. Truth be known, I think there are VERY few politicians on either side of the aisle who desire to do anything significant about the illegal immigration problem. Several here have noted that a fence wouldn’t solve the problem. Turning on a bilge pump wouldn’t stop the water from leaking into the boat in your analogy either, but it would keep it from sinking — a good first step. I just want to see that GOOD FIRST STEP, some good faith effort that says we’re serious about solving the problem. There’s no reason why stopping, or least slowing down the tidal wave of illegals, can’t or shouldn’t be that first good step.
I’m tired of seeing Republicans eat their own.
Squiggler, I’m getting a little tired of it too. It’s one thing to stand on principle; it’s quite another to be so inflexible that you allow people with no principles to be elevated to positions of control over your future because you let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I just do not understand that mentality.
One thing people forget about Illegal voting in our elections is this: Robert K. Dornan. Wayyyy back in 1996, he was able to PROVE over 7,000 Illegals voted in his election against Loretta Sanchez Brixi. But the House leadership refused to do anything about it, as they did not want to upset Hispanic voters. I was outraged by this back then and have closely watched this sense then.
I know our local morning host on WBT, Keith Larson, has interviewed numerous State Officials, as well as Congressmen and Senators about them voting here in N.C. They, most of them anyway, will admit it is going on, but they claim to be doing everything in their power to stop it. But then Keith points out that in N.C. all you need to get a license in N.C. is a Mexican Couselar Metricular card, and while at the DMV they can register to vote thru Motor Voter. Politicians then try to say that they are going to correct this problem, but nothing is ever done. But at this point, what can be done? I mean, no one is allowed to ask them if they are here legaly, so how, once they have the drivers license and have registered to vote, what can you really do? I’m clueless on this.
I did early voting at my local Board of Elections here in Concord. There was only one other person there voting when I was there. They asked my name and address. I told them I’d be much happier if they would ask for my I/D., to prove who I am. They told me that by N.C. law, the could not ask me for my I.D. I told them I was very concerned about Illegal voting. They too said they were concerned, but there was nothing they could do. As long as the name and address corresponded with what they had, there was nothing more they could do. It was a sobering moment for me. But even with asking for a Drivers License, what with our State Laws the way they are, You still would not be able to discern who is who. It’s a big problem that has been brewing for years. At least here, I see no way to combate this. If Illegals can get licenses so easy here, this problem wont go away. The only solution is to check Immigration statues prior to issuing licenses. Does anyone see any other way?
AJ, you are right. The nuts were only warming up with Harriet Miers and Dubai Ports… since then, they’ve convinced themselves they are the base and will speak for me despite all protests to the contrary. Unfortunately, no one of influence seems to be listening. The Tancredo/Malkin lunatics are only digging in and redoubling their rage (which should be self directed) at illegals. So far, there is no sign of intelligent life among Right Wing pundits and politicos. FoxNews seems to have become the Tancredo News Network — wisely choosing the prettier (though far meaner and more ruthless) Miz Malkin as the front man for the alien purge campaign.
The appt of Martinez at RNC, however, is a large and laudable finger in the face of the kooks. I am savoring that, and chuckling to myself as W marches right over the immi-fascist road kill, with a wink and a smile.
Thank you for providing this sphere of respite from the insanity, and for continuing to speak out in opposition against the loud, obnoxious, suiciders among us. Your words and thoughts really take the edge off the hangover.
Humor where you find it: Karig says:
“you’d think that maybe people would start making a distinction between illegal immigrants who come here to work and illegal immigrants who come here to commit crimes or even terrorism,”
And I suppose the ones who come to work have a “W” on their forehead and the criminals have a “C” or “T”? Okay, so we just wave the W’s on in and hold the others for a day or two?
Sounds like we now have a plan.
right leader for the GOP?
That’s Pres Bush, right?
Retired Spook,
You wrote –
“Truth be known, I think there are VERY few politicians on either side of the aisle who desire to do anything significant about the illegal immigration problem. Several here have noted that a fence wouldn’t solve the problem. Turning on a bilge pump wouldn’t stop the water from leaking into the boat in your analogy either, but it would keep it from sinking — a good first step. I just want to see that GOOD FIRST STEP, some good faith effort that says we’re serious about solving the problem. There’s no reason why stopping, or least slowing down the tidal wave of illegals, can’t or shouldn’t be that first good step.”
I agree 100% that there are VERY few politicians interested in solving the problem. You don’t need to look far for the proof either – the mere fact that they refuse to enforce existing laws is all the proof you need.
And here in Oregon, we suffer the same problem that SteveWS described above. Ours is even worse here. We do vote by mail. And our DMV does the same thing as N.C.’s. You can get a driver’s license with a Matricula Consar card and you are registered to vote at the same time. Then at election time they mail you a ballot.
What bothers me is that they seem more concerned about garnering the “Hispanic vote” than they are concerned about preventing illegal aliens from voting. The system is rigged so that they will vote.
We are pretty much screwed.
As far as “turning on the bilge pump”, two things –
1. do we need new laws to turn on the bilge pumps?
2. AJ doesn’t want to turn on the bilge pumps until we debate what water gets pumped out of the boat and what water stays.
Rather than have that debate now, I simply want to plug the holes. This isn’t the time to have that argument. We should be able to at bare minimum agree to plug the holes now and debate later.
But overall, I agree completely with you. It really doesn’t matter how this debate turns out because the politicians are going to do what they want to do regardless of what we think. Heck, they refuse to enforce existing laws, why make new laws to not enforce?
Our nation is in trouble. We have a declining birth rate. Any civilization with a declining birth rate is doomed. It will simply cease to exist after a period of time. To make things even worse, married people are now the minority. Single people out number married people! And we have a GROWING economy. How can we have a growing economy with a declining birth rate? Answer – we can’t.
But there isn’t a politician alive who is willing to stand up and tell the American people that a declining birth rate is a BAD thing. That might force people to revisit the whole abortiond debate and NOBODY wants to go there. They don’t have the balls to do that. So instead they simply refuse to enforce our immigration laws and look the other way. Then they fight over who will get the “Hispanic vote”.
Grim reality isn’t it?
Want an even worse reality?
None of this will matter one bit if Iran gets a couple nuclear bombs. We need to stop arguing about the little sh!t and band together to fight the big stuff.
The Chinese expression, “May you live in interesting times” is actually an old Chinese curse. And cursed we are, because we are living in very interesting times.
Got to run. We are selling our house and there is work to be done. I’ll check back this evening.
Apache IP
Right, because you’ll get further by assuming we have twelve-million-plus Mexican and Guatemalan puppy-rapists in the country, and more coming in every day.
Does no one want to answer my questions? What do we do will all the now legal immigrants that no longer have jobs because employers can’t pay them prevailing wage and still make a profit?
And I love how those who do not agree with our enforcement first (fence included ) policy are all labeled “racists”. Do you think that Tom Tancredo’s grandchildren realize their grandfather hates them because they are half Hispanic? You label those of us who do not agree with you as bigots and racist but yet, you have no knowledge of our ethnic hertiage. Is there even a remote possibility that we might be wholly or part Hispanic ourselves and we still don’t agree with giving law breakers a free pass?
What no one accepts is that those who sneak into our nation are of a different culture. They do not have the same standards we do, and just as we make the mistake of thinking that the terrorists are just evil men doing evil deeds, we do not accept that it is their very culture that allows them to do that. It is hard to change 1400 years of doctrine and there in lies the problem.
You want to change the hearts and minds of a people that comefrom a totally corrupt government. People who fear the police in their native lands are not going to trust ours, no matter what you do and how hard you try to win the hearts and minds by bringing them “out of the shadows”. If you intention was only to make money to send back to your native land, and you had a choice, would you take $10.00 an hour and pay taxes, Social Security, state taxes and even some municipal taxes or would you take th $8.00 under the table, no taxes and no records.
Martinez is a bad choice for RNC chairman. What will he be first; senator or chairman? Shouldn’t he be devoting his full attention to the job he was elected to do?
Funny how there are those who would give a pass to those who violated our laws and our borders but get all in a twit when their zoning laws are thwarted because there are more illegals living in an apartment that the zoning laws allow.
Seems to me there are those who are more worried about zoning enforcement that national sovereignty.
AJ,
That is a terrific post!
Treasuring our “humanness,” and the country that best allows us to be fully “human,” are a good basis for conservatism.
I find a piece of “wisdom” in most of the comments here. At least conservatives can advance a discussion, from point to point.
I’m wondering if : A conservative is a libertarian with a conscience.
retire05
how we have now agreed to build 700 miles of fence. Can you provide me with the bill that funds that fence?
Retire, I believe that a couple weeks before Pres signed the fence bill, he signed an appropriations bill that provided 1.2 billion for the fence. At the time everyone was saying, hey the fence hasn’t even been approved,why is he appropriating money for it.
Even with this tho, according to most on this site, it will never be built.
Seems like any bill that is passed, if it is unpopular, it won’t get done.
Like the comprehensive bill.
I have a plan. All the illegals who are caught crossing the border get a free ride back over the border. No stops. no immigration courts, no holding facilities, no releasing them to the public, just send them back. This should have been done from the beginning. If it had been so many illegals would not be so enthusiastic about coming here. If they have to make the trip several times in order to get in maybe they would stop trying to come. This all comes down to PC. All evil seems to flow from PC. The Department of Immigration has been corrupt for a long time. They seem to pick and choose who can come in legally without rhyme or reason. They do nothing about illegals coming across the border but hound legally married spouses who may or may not have married to get in. But least these people would not be a drain on our resources.
I have noticed there are more comments when anything about immigration is posted. It seems to be an issue that is alive and well.
I am with Squiggler. Even Pence has gone stupid.
The hardliners lost on this and the reason they lost on this and the reason is that the compromise was not good enough for them. Screw everyone else. No they had to have more fence and if they got 700 miles you would have demanded 2,000 and if they got that they would have demanded people loaded into cattle cars and on and on an on.
I am still with the Republicans because the Democrats refuse to take national security seriously.
But…I am fed up with people like Malkin and Tancredo and their ilk thinking they speak for me. They don’t. They lost us the election with their xenophobic raving nonsense and their refusal to even contemplate what the rest of the country says and their self righteous sense of entitlement…assuming they are America, they speak for America…the rest of us are just not important.
And so they attack anyone who does not fit their little mold of what a real conservative is supposed to be like, it does not matter if it is Martinez or Miers or Bush or Lott who or what it is, they attack.
And I am sick of it and America is sick of it.
If they had accepted that compromise there would be billions of dollars going into both border security and immigration reform..but because it was not what they wanted it was not worth bothering with and so they killed it..and now most of them are gone, they lost their elections and these idiots are still out there threatening people.
If they keep it up they will not even get the fence.
Enforcement:
Actually there was an appropriations bill that allowed for the money for a fence and the right went nuts because it was just an appropriations bill and not the Fence Security Act itself and so they were sure Bush{being the bad person that he is} was going to screw them and bad mouthed him until he signed the Fence Security Act as well. So it should go through. Unless of course the Right just keeps digging that hole.
But my guess is that until there is a fence down there they will just assume that Bush and everyone else is trying to mess with them and they will get obnoxious {like Pence is doing} and renew their my way or the highway strategy that was worked so well for them so far and piss of so many people that they lose even that.
After all, everyone is out to get them.
SallyVee talking about nuts.
When you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger.
There is absolutely no justification for all your name calling just because someone disagrees with your point of view.
You will find out that the population that communicates regularly on this site is about 50-50 in favor of fence first(but not only) but you will find it much nearer 100% that the illegal immigration issue needs to be solved. What you will find almost no agreement on, how to do it.
For example, during Pres Reagan’s term, a comprehensive bill was passed to solve it. Did it solve it?
What is special about this new comprehensive bill that will solve it?
It might if there were any provisions that required what is in it to be enforced, unfortunately there is no more enforcement than what was in the Reagan bill.
It serves no purpose in saying FoxNews is the Tancredo network. I watch it every day and I see no bias whatsoever on the border solution. Everyone on it has different opinions, just as you do.
I see nothing in what you are proposing that would solve anything, and you certainly are not gonna change anyone’s mind with your attitude. In fact, you or no one else, is going to change anyone’s mind.
We need a solution, not name calling and respect everyone else’s opinion, they feel as if they are right, same as you do. So any name calling you do, include yourself in that category.
Crikey, terrye, give it a rest. Your visions of people being shipped on cars like cattle shows that your argument is weak so you have to embellish the truth. No one is wanting people loaded like cattle.
And maybe Malkin and Tancredo do not speak for you, but they do speak for millions of Americans who are tired of paying the tab for what Mexico don’t want to pay for. Do you really think if you get sick in Mexico and don’t have any money you are going to get quality health care?
Do you really think the fence will ever be built? God, you are gullible, arn’t you? It will never see the light of day.
And why do you chose to ignore my questions? Who is going to support all those who lose their jobs when we make the employers pay prevailing wage?
Did you ever read S.B. 2611? Did you even know that it grants illegals prevailing wage in areas that have it while it does not grant the same rights to legal citizens? Are you aware that it allows the illegal to only pay 3 out of 5 years worth of taxes, and if no income can be documented (as is the case when you are paid under the table) there would be NO
God, terrye, give it a rest. You’ve tried that vision of millions of people being shipped on cattle cars before. That dog won’t hunt. No one is talking about that.
And maybe Tancredo and Malkin don’t speak for you, but they do speak for millions of Americans, especially in the border states, that are tired of picking up the tab for Vincente Fox’s unwanted.
So while you are crying in your pepsi over the cattle cars, how about answering my questions. Or are they just too logical?
Some of us are realists about those little social experiments that some of you like to make. We tried it with the Great Society, it just reaped more people on welfare. We tried making abortion legal for those rare cases where a woman is raped or is a victim of incest; oops. Now it is used as birth control with over 1.8 million babies aborted last year alone. We granted amnesty to millions of illegals in the ’80 because it would solve the problem of illegal immigration and would force the government to enforce our immigration laws. Ooops, we now have (according to the Border Patrol) upwards of 20 million more in just 20 years.
Seems like some of you are not happy with the government that was set up by our founding fathers. It wasn’t broke, but you wanted to fix it. You are just so much smarter than they were.
So you go ahead and be a standard bearing for the illegal immigrant. And when you taxes continue to go up, when crime continues to skyrocket in areas of the nation that are heavily populated with illegals, when the school systems deteriorate like Los Angeles has, don’t cry to me who believed in the “fence first” policy.
Here’s a couple of Border Patrol that tried to enforce laws on our border.
http://www.friendsoftheborderpatrol.com/501guest.html
written by one of the very few Congressman that appear interested in
enforcement at all.
sorry about that……………
if no salary can be documented through pay stubs, company records, NO taxes would be due. How do you bill someone who has no documented work history?
There are those of us whe are realists. We realize that some of you seem to think that that “more” perfect union that the founding fathers designed can be improved on with social engineering. We watched as the Great Society took hold so we could eliminate poverty. Oooops, there are more people than ever on welfare. We saw how legalizing abortions for those rare cases of rape and incest turned out. 1.8 million babies aborted last year alone. We stood by as millions of illegals were granted amnesty in the ’80’s because it would be an end to our illegal immigration problem. Ooops the laws that went along with that amnesty were never enforced so now (according to the Border Patrol) we have 20 million more illegals.
What is it about you that wants to change what the founding fathers envisioned? You seem to think you are smarter than they are, and even though the system wasn’t broken, you have to fix it.
You are so conceited that you think everyone who sneaks across our borders want to become a citizen. Wrong. Most of them are here to make a living they can’t earn elsewhere and are not spending their money here to create a life, but sending it back to Mexico to return there and live like they never dreamed possible. $40 billion went to Mexico in 2004. Construction is booming in Mexico as millions of illegals send there money back and are building home IN MEXICO. It is MEXICAN banks that are reaping the wind fall, it is MEXICAN business that are booming from illegal dollars sent there, it is MEXICAN
Tell us, terrye, if all these illegals are so interested in building a life here, why are they sending 90% of their money back to Mexico? It is MEXICAN banks that are reaping the windfall, it is MEXICAN businesses that are booming, it is MEXICAN construction companies getting rich from building houses that are being paid for by dollars sent there by illegals in our nation. It was $40 billion in 2004 that went into the Mexican economy and not our, sent there by illegals who are not contributing to our society only adding to the woes of our schools and hospitals.
And are you so conceited that you think that everyone who sneaks into our nation does so with the desire to become a citizen? If you are, how do you explain that they sent 90% of their money back to the native land and boost that economy, not ours.
We have seen other examples of social engineering. The Great Society that was going to eliminate poverty. Oooops. Abortion laws that was going to protect those victims from rape and incest. Ooops. 1.8 million abortions last year. Amnesty for illegals in the ’80’s that was going to end the illegal problem with new laws. Oooops. the laws weren’t enforced and now (according to the Border Patrol) we have 20 million more illegals.
But you are so much smarter than the founding fathers. You are trying to take a “more” perfect union and a system not broken and fix it.
But a word of warning; when 50% of the populace is supporting the other 50% our nation will cease to exist as we know it. When we give up or sovereignty, we will cease to be a nation. When we erase our borders, we will become the same declining society we are seeing in Europe.
And we who realize that it all could have been avoided will tell you to quit your complaining, you got what you asked for.