Jun 12 2007
Lori Byrd Asks For Mature Debate
I applaud Lori Byrd’s attempt to call for civil debate inside the GOP – but sadly it is too late. The Immigration Hypochondriacs (sorry, but that phrase is too good not to use), despite their smoke screens, are against fines and reparation of back taxes for long term illegal aliens to pay their debt to society and to become legal workers. They cannot abide this resolution. We won’t get into how those in glass houses (those who even once drove a car intoxicated) could claim a first time DUI charge should be less severe than working without papers. But the point is the facade fell off the far right’s intentions a long time ago. They are nativists and want revenge on the immigrants. Some, like Tancredo and Buchanan, want all immigration shut down. Others (and polls show this) want deportation or to make life here so bad people leave. In all cases they want more than the crime calls for when you look at other crimes and other punishments.
Sorry, I am not in the crowd who likes to inflict excess pain on others to make themselves feel superior. And all the lipstick the far right applies will not change the fact that at the core of their ever shifting rationales and incoherent logic is their true goal: get the illegal immigrants out. They will never support a bill that provides any path to legality – no matter what the fine. The fact they are both unreasonable and unrealistic means nothing to them. And that is why they lashed out at Bush and the supporters of this bill. It does not matter how civil they try to make their hate. It does not matter how eloquently they rationalize their need to inflict suffering on people who came here to work. It does not matter how many excuses they concoct to feel good about their obsession with revenge. They will never move me to the dark side!
I stand proudly with Bush, Kyle, McCain, Kennedy, The Anchoress and many others. And I will not ever stand with the Buchannans, Tancredos, and the Ingrahams. I do not care if occasionally their blinders lift and they agree with me on Iraq or lower taxes or any other issue. I don’t care if they can be civil and gracious on other topics. The fact is they cannot maintain the facade on all issues, and that means problems. Great for them when they concur and they do so civilly. But the test is when you don’t agree – that is what defines strong alliances.
They exposed a side of them that showed so much anger and vitriol I cannot ever see a way to align my good name with their withering hate. We could ally again – but the mea culpa required on their side is way too much for them to swallow to bridge the gap. Not to gain the limited support of this small blogger. I know this. I am fine with this.
After what these people showed us on this issue (like Billbo’s brief transition when he sees the one-wring on Frodo when they are with the elves) it tells me there is a dangerous element at work that is not under their control. When you can call our President a traitor, and equate him with Adam Gadahn, you have forever left me behind. Go where you must. But you go without me. There are other, better, brighter paths out there. I have lost interest in this one which has so much baggage it would be cleaner for my eternal soul if I stayed away. I cannot muster that much animosity agains a human being trying to make a living and raise a family. That wil always pale to the person who drives recklessly and risks people’s lives. Always. Call me when we deport Americans for driving dangerously, then we can talk.
Ditto me this:
They exposed a side of them that showed so much anger and vitriol I cannot ever see a way to align my good name with their withering hate.
and this:
When you can call our President a traitor, and equate him with Adam Gadahn, you have forever left me behind. Go where you must. But you go without me. There are other, better, brighter paths out there. I have lost interest in this one which has so much baggage it would be cleaner for my eternal soul if I stayed away.
We were a nation that lost most of it’s Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. We went up against an enemies that had been preparing for war, both Japan and Germany, building their war machines while we were deep into the isolationist movement and yet, somehow, we managed to win the war against Japanese and Nazi aggression.
We were lagging in the space race, yet we managed to put a man on the moon, overtaking the space race.
And never forget, that we fought, for seven years, a nation that was ruler of the civilized world, with rag tag troops, recruited from the farms and shops of young North America, and won our independence from the most powerful nation in the world.
Now, the pro-illegal bunch, who have ignored the laws they enacted since 1986, are saying that if we don’t subscribe to this bill now in the Senate, we will never gain control of our borders or the illegal invasion into the United States and we should take was they offer. Dishonest statements.
It is not that we cannot control our borders or stop the flow of illegals into the United States. It is that our elected officials, from every President in the last 20 years, down to the city councilman, have not had the will to control our borders or stop the flow of illegals into our nation. They will have you believe that a nation that could defeat the Nazi war machine and put a man on the moon, does not have the ability to enforce the laws they have enacted. That attitude doesn not speak for the will of the American people, it speaks to the will of those we elected to represent us.
The elected elite ask us to believe that THIS TIME, they will enforce the new laws while we have their track records of non-enforcement to go on. They are asking us to buy a program without knowledge of the cost, or the payments thereafter, because we can trust them to do the right thing THIS TIME. We are lead to believe that this new law will increase employer sanctions when the same administration only prosecuted four employers in all of 2006.
So make no mistake, we are being told that unless we accept this new bill, it will remain status quo (no enforcement of current laws) and that will be our punishment for questioning a deal created in the back rooms of the Senate by those who think they are so much smarter than the people who elected them and who tried to ram this bill through without the proper procedures normally given to all bills.
Perhaps it is now time for our elected elites to create a bill that pardons all sex offenders. After all, enacting bills and laws that make sex offending illegal has not stop the crime. Making murder illegal has not stopped murders. Come to think of it, no law enacted has ever stopped the crime it make illegal. But we still prosecute murders and sex offenders. Kind of flies in the face of what we are being told, doesn’t it?
If you want Sane, and ACCURATE and REAL analysis of the Immigration Bill, the debate on it, the REAL reasons why it failed, it’s future, etc., I suggest you all go over to this Blog/Link to get it, because you are NOT getting it here, on THIS issue!
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010220.php#comments
Dale,
You think heading to the echo chambers will fix this? Ostrich if you want to.
What Sally Vee quoted.
Thanks AJ.
I agree with much of what the article said. We have no choice but to get along.
I also say this being part of the group that has been vilified. For all those that complain of being called racist remember this. We who supported comp immigration reform have been called far worse 100 times more among our fellow conservatives. t would have been nice of the conservative leaders had tried to stem that in the beginning. So evwen though I disagree with AJ to a certain extent on this I am tempted to go into that camp.
THe battle for the soul of the GOP and conservative movement is not over. TO say it is to to do a diservice to people like Lindsy Graham and Senator Kyl that are fighting bravely to stop this trainwreck.
IF the bill passes and becomes law what will happen. Really? Will this angry segment of the party (that seems to never show up when needed in elections- They certaintly did not reward the House for stopping the bill last year) go a form a thrid party? What would this party be based on. Opposition to a already passed law? Would Chris Simcox or Tancredo become Party Chairman? This issue will deflate quite quickly if the bill is passed and we shall move on. There will be other “crisies” to the Republic that will occupy us and unite us.
The movers and shakers that make money and gain prestige off the GOP will not all desert. Do people think that Sean Hannity is going to start promoting the Const party.
In the end who the heck is Michelle Malkin and other people that have blogs and talk shows. They are not elected. They are people that have a market tuned message to make money.
So yes we must reconcile. We must give up some of the old hurts and start realizing the Coaltion Reagan built is the recipe of success. The tone of this debate is causing real damage to the Party and the Country. At the end of the day if we seperate then we will be defeated.
Immigration issues touch on a lot of the nastiness we pretend doesnt exist. It plays on many of worse fears adn misconceptions. IT is never easy.
JH
LOuisiana
05,
It is difficult to debate with the anti-immigrant folks because they over simplify their “solutions” and reject the most promising “solutions.” Many resent business and couldn’t care less how business owners are hurt.
Then they repeat pseudo metaphors, like “leaky boats” ad naseum and finally appeal to concepts of culture and patriotism.
Their “statistics”showing widespread Hispanic criminal behavior are seriously flawed, as demonstrated by Linda Chavez at NRO. And many take their data from very questionable organizations.
I understand AJ’s frustration with these people and wish the honest immigration bill critics would acknowledge the good in it and work to repair the faults.
I am with Sally Vee.
I would like to see some of these people who obsessively criticized this bill and went over board with every “what if”, come up with a plan of their own and let it stand this kind of scrutiny. Build a wall and deport them is not a plan. It is just something to say to avoid coming up with a plan.
And then after they have spent 1/10th of the effort coming up with a detailed plan of their own that they did bitching about this one…we can call them traitors and fools and liars and morons. We can eviscerate their plan and claim it is part of a conspiracy to destroy the country. But then that would not happen.
But they don’t have the guts to do that. They think they know it all when it comes to the topic of illegal immigration, but short of running their mouths they can’t come up with anything constructive to move the debate forward. I might have said they could claim the wall as something of a success, but since they refuse to believe it will ever be built {our traitor government will not allow it doncha know} I guess that can’t be on the list of things they have accomplished.
It was not the socalled traitor side of the debate {such as Kyl} talking about hispanics stinking like refried beans, or making cracks about John McCAin getting it on with HoChiMinh or calling the President a traitor any of the other idiotic rhetoric we have listened to in the last three weeks. No, some of the things I have heard from these people turned my stomach and I do not want to be associated with much of what I have heard from them.
There is an old song, I got along without you before I met you, gonna get along without you now. That is how I feel about a lot of these people. I don’t read their blogs or listen to their stuff on TV and radio anymore and I am a happier person for it.
And they need to learn to count. Until and unless they have a strong majority in the Congress they will never get everything they want, so all their pompous demands are useless anyway, unless of course their desire is not to accomplish something, it is to destroy something. That they have proven they can do.
AJ: Capt is many things, but one thing he has never been, is an “echo chamber!
Second, that’s funny (as in “ironic”, not as in “haha”); that you say that about him, when you’ve been nothing BUT an “echo chamber” on THIS issue, for your “my way, or the highway” approach to this bill!
You won’t discuss it, you wont’ take questions, you won’t answer questions, you insult constantly, those of us who disagree with you, you refuse to listen to what we say, you refuse accept ANY other “opinon” on this issue, you refuse to face all FACTS on this issue, ad naseum!
Capt, at least, on this issue, bases his analysis on the FACTS, and if the facts change, or new one comes to light, he then adjusts his analysis, and posts, accordingly.
However, you arrived at your Conclusion on this issue, without any basis in Fact, and then every single post you put up afterwards, is convoluted around somehow, keeping yourself firmly painted into the corner, that you firmly put yourself in!
And I can see where this is headed, with you, you first claimed that it was this bill, or nothing, and none of us were allowed to question you, suggest improvements, etc. We were just plain Wrong, and “immigration hypochondrics” and “right wing nuts”!
Even though, we had legitimate concerns about the bill, that we wanted to discussed, you scoffed all that off, insulted us, told us we didn’t know what we were talking about, that we were destroying the Republican Party and the conservative movement, etc., and the Bill had to pass, AS IS, NOW!
Well, the bill was voted against Cloture, and despite YOUR “analysis”, it wasn’t the Republicans that “killed” it, was Harry Reid who tabled it, but you ignore those FACTS, and continue to post your Spin.
Now, as I predicted, here, and Capt at his Blog, this Bill may get “revived”, maybe.
You know you’re in a corner of your own painting, so you’re furiously posting/spinning, to try and get out of it.
What’s going to happen, is IF this Bill is straightened out, and IF it comes back to life in the Senate, and is finally approved, you WILL claim “credit”, say you predicted it, and pretend you were on the “winning” side the whole time.
That’s the undlying premise of your posts yesterday and today, though you’ll never admit that!
And your doom and gloom, for the Republicans and the Conservative movement, are just plain dead wrong, and the recent polls the last two days prove that!
This whole debacle has had more blowback, deservedly so back onto the Democrats and Harry Reid, and I’ll make the prediction now:
Rudy Guilliani OR Fred Thompson with the 2008 election in a Walk! Against ANYONE that the Leftists put up!
And either one, or both Houses of Congress go back to the Reps at the same time.
I wonder how you’ll spin that when that happens?
Thanks Macker. That’s how problems are solved.
Retire, don’t you see how weird it is… what you’re doing. And why some people are left confused, worn out, and frankly repelled. Just now you started out with the rah rah patriotic Marine Corps anthem playing in the background. But pretty soon the music changes and I’m hearing Marilyn Manson in the background… as you insist that at least the last 20 years is a total nightmarish elitist tyranny and a run up to the present moment of final confrontation. Sorry, but that’s the type of energy and passion I reserve for our realenemies, as in Islamic radicals.
The relentless melodrama is getting to be a bit much. You wonder why people don’t respond sometimes… well, it’s about the same reason as I’d give to Algore regarding his End of the World global warming prophecies. I just don’t buy it… my B.S. meter is sensing a big, overheated pile of doo doo. And that’s about as scientific a way as I can explain things.
biglsufan:
Yes, all these people who worry about big business etal in this forget that people like Malkin make money being provocative. That is their business.
They are like childless people writing books on child rearing. They rabble rouse, the blow off, they do not have to do anything constructive.
Even the politicians running for president to a certain extent are using this for personal gain. If it passes and is seen as a success then the winner can claim it was his or her leadership that made it all possible. If it does not work out, then will come the claims that they were against it all along.
But McCain and Bush and Kyl and even Graham are putting their reputations on the line to tackle a difficult challenge that may lesser men might let go by.
And by the way, hearing people call these men traitors really annoys me. People can call Lindsay Graham a RINO or whatever, but the people of his state put him in office and kept him there. And they are the ones who make that decision. Not some snarky bloggers.
And you right JH, in spite of all their noise, the hardliners do not do so well at the polls.
Dale:
Captain started out supporting this bill until he took so much crap from so many abusive people that he decided it was easier to go along to get along. I remember when he did a post on immigration “pipe dreams” which made a lot of sense and the response from some of the commenters was so stupid I stopped even reading the blog.
Sally:
Yes, weird is right. It reminds me of Rosie and her steel doesn’t melt rant.
~10 min. later~
Climbing back up the next hill of the roller coaster, having just reviewed LSU’s excellent call to conscience and unity.
Okay. I wouldn’t be here and neither would any of us, if we had really given up. That includes A.J.
I’m willing, but not sure I’m able to do much. Standing by, holding tongue, praying for guidance. Tell me what else.
>Go where you must. But you go without me. There are other, better, >brighter paths out there.
I really hope that when you break up with chicks, you do so quicker than this. You’ve been whining about this for weeks now. We get it!
Terrye: I literally don’t understand anything you post on this issue!
First, I read CQ every day, just like AJ here, have for the past 2 years or so!
What you described, regarding Capt and the Immigration Bill; I NEVER saw that happen over there, as you describe it! Some people attack the Capt; I’ve attacked him myself on occasion, but unlike AJ, he almost NEVER responds, NEVER, and he very rarely, if ever, inserts himself into the discussion thread, almost never.
I’ve also never saw him change his analysis, based upon whether he’s getting pounded in the thread or not.
What he does, is, if his Facts change, he’ll adjust his analysis accordingly, which is the CORRECT way to do things!
That said, he is STILL not a “Trancrediot” or anything anywhere close; his approach is, as has been MINE, and R05, and LE, and Bikerken, and other’s on this board, is “Okay, the bills a good start, but we know there are flaws in it, so let’s tighten up the flaws”!
That’s all me, and anyone else has EVER propsed here!
That’s IT!
And still, in return for that sage piece of advice, we get called racists and bigots and “hard right wingers” and “immigration hypochondriacs”, etc.
ACTUALLY READ the post, over at Capt’s I put up there today.
Actually read not only the analysis, but the Internal Congressional Memo, about why the Bill failed, how it was conceived, how it brought to the floor of the Senate to begin with, and tell then come back and tell me, that that is the dealings of people like (Kennedy and McCain); who not only have something to hide, but are trying to pull a fast one!
Also tell me, why I should support THAT, when over half the Senate wouldn’t support it either for the very REAL reasons!
Tell me why YOU, still support it, when you don’t even know what’s in the bill, the problems with it, etc.
That’s like me telling you: “Hey Terrye, all my friends are upstairs on the 20th floor, jumping off the roof to the street below, you go do it too!”
And you go, “Yeah, okay Dale, be glad too, since everybody else is doing it, why not?”
That makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it?
But that has been the level of the argument, posted by AJ, you, and the others!
WE are not allowed to suggest “improvements” to bill, because it’s the best idea that’s come along, so take it now, or leave it!
That’s just an absolutely INANE argument, if you ask me!
Of course, you won’t agree, so it doesn’t matter anyhow.
Jake,
No you don’t get it. If I planned to go alone I would not be posting why it is time for a lot of us to rethink our ties to a GOP mired in so many problems and who lash out at moderates.
See Jake, I want the bill to pass. And to pass I need to make the far right GOP unsupported by the broader conservative community. They share my feelings and are ready to give Kyl and McCain and Graham and McConnel and Lott the room they need to get a compromise.
I see 9-10 GOP senators are back at the same silly claim – they can make the current FUBAR system work. Just let the criminals stay on our streets and we will be fine. Yeah, like there’s a plan. But that leaves 35 or so to create the space for passage.
That is dangerous as well as silly. So no, not until this bill passes because the far right is isolated will I stop. That is how politics is played. The far right screwed up. They think moderates cannot fight for their beliefs and would diss their masters. LOL!
Ooopps. I think that was a big misunderestimation. The calls of “traitor” and the sudden faith in the currently broken system was all that was needed to get the moderates to reject the far right, fight for their positions and beat back the immigration hypochondriacs.
And all the complaints about how mean people are won’t wash. Those calls of ‘traitors’ was enough to free us up to be quite tough on our ex-partners in the GOP. Tough in the sense we will show how incoherent and nonsensical the far right has become on this issue. Tough enough to marginalize them to the point their voices will not carry the day anymore.
Is it going to happen? Who knows. But I do know I will give it my all for quite some time. Even if we knock them down a bit, the next time they play this game they come back even weaker than now.
SallyVee
The thing that irratates me is that I expect politicians to act like smart politicians. The 12 million are not going away. The ones with 3.1 million Children and American wifes and husbands are not going away. If our Economy keeps on humming it will just not happen and infact eh numebrs will increase.
THerefore we are having a huge argument over people that the economy and the nation has pretty much already assimilated. There will never be the votes for massive deportation or a truly effective attrition through enforcement policy without dealing with the people that are the equvilant of the population of the old Confederate States of America. Just will not happen.
Allwe are doing is letting the emotion get hotter and hotter and further out of control that will bite one party. That is the GOP. Demographics are not on our side.
Time to make a deal for goodness sakes.
Dale:
I am saying I stopped reading the Captain because I got sick of the whole debate over there and I will not bother going back, free country. If I don’t want to follow your link I won’t. There are a lot of blogs I used to look at every day that I never look at any more. I am sorry to say Captain is one of many.
Hugh Hewitt is another.