Jun 29 2007
Dafydd Tries To Salvage The GOP’s Soul
Dafydd over at Big Lizards is trying to save the GOP from the fallout of its disaster on the immigration bill. Laudable idea. Completely useless though. This is what Hispanics hears plenty of over the last couple of months from the underbelly of the GOP:
I’m with you. Round them ALL up and toss their anchor babies (anchors only around our necks) into the trucks and get them the hell to the border!
If this doesn’t cause extreme prejudice against the Mexican criminal class who have invaded our county I don’t know what will.Furthermore, I wouldn’t be a tourist in Mexico for hundreds of thousands of pesos!
Boycott Mexico and boycott ANY Mexican laborers.
That’s mild. And the bashing of our President was on a par with Democrat Underground:
Bush is more than a moron. There’s weird intent behind his actions. Bush thinks we all own big ranches like his friends… and Bush thinks we need an untouchable class to do the dirty work.
It’s sooooooooo American. NOT.Bush gets to take a big hit on his brother Jeb too – who has a son with brown skin. A son who will forever more be confused with the second class citizen/worker class.
Will any of us ever look at our brown skinned neighbors the same way? I’ve always seen them as “Americans” – now I’ll wonder if they broke into my country to clean the toilets. I hope Bush enjoys the cheap labor…
This crap left a big stain. One which, I for one, can never get near. I cannot ally with people who think like this. I grew up hating racists because, honestly, they were everywhere and all they did was prattle on about ‘nigger’ this and ‘nigger’ that and how those trying to give the blacks equal standing where destroying this nation, blah, blah, blah. And now that ugly side of humanity has raised its head again, blaming race and creed and nationality as causes for what is really a problem we have had for decades trying to manage the temporary workers our economy has been based on for at least 100 years.
Our “neighbors” down south are different – not poisonous evil scum. Their economies are not as strong as ours, they are not was wealthy – they are not lesser beings. My one visit to Argentina showed me a kindred people who were part Texas and part Spain. They had their economic problems, but they were proud and honorable people. The immigrant kids and families in our community who come from south of the border are wonderful additions to our neighborhood in nearly all cases. There are bad apples. Crime is a human condition, not a national one.
The people south of the border do not magically transform from the dark side to angels based on whether they have work permits or not. Their cultures do not change based on whether a representative is documented or undocumented. The stain left from this battle is not rational. One thing is clear. I will take my neighbors over these hot heads any day of the week. Good luck Dafydd, but there are more fleas than anything else in that bed your lying in. It is not 100% bad, but bad enough to need to be disinfected.
Update: Yeah, and the death threats – that wasn’t a good tactic either.
490 days and counting to election day 2008, and the usual suspects are all whooping and hollering about how they “won.”
President Hillary Clinton and a 60+-seat majority in the Senate are going to be a painful chastisement for this country.
Under President Clinton, the Global War on Terrorism will come to an end–but only after (a) a WMD attack in the US and (b) USSTRATCOM incinerates about 50% of the Middle East.
>Our “neighbors†down south are different – not poisonous evil scum. >Their economies are not as strong as ours, they are not was wealthy – >they are not lesser beings.
Of course Mexican citizens are not “scum”. It is their racist government who are the scumbags. Once the good people in Mexico have had enough and get rid of it, that is when this whole mess will start to clear up.
Death threats?
It’s one thing for wingnuts to make them on the phone, it’s another for a prominent website to allow users to post this crap and refuse to pull it when told about it.
AJ,
I would suggest we visit some of the radical Hispanic sites that call for the retaking of the Southwestern US. The rhetoric there is at least as vicious as what you have quoted above. However, you clearly believe (and correctly, I think), that Americans should ignore the radical Hispanic element’s hateful comments and the millions of Hispanic people who took to the streets with Mexican flags because the majority of them are good and decent human beings. Clear enough. But at the same time you seem to feel that the Hispanic community is going to reject the Republican party because of disgusting comments made by people on the fringe, despite the fact that the vast majority of Republicans are not racist or prejudiced. Even the comments on this site clearly show that racism was not the motivation for opposition to this bill – people mostly thought (even though many may disagree with it) that we could do this better.
My question is why the same level of understanding not required of the Hispanic community in your post? You ask us to look beyond the La Raza slogans and Mexican nationalist protests, but you do not seem to think Hispanic people are capable of looking past the racism on the far right…
AJ–
So you think everyone who doesn’t want to open our country to anyone who can sneak across the border is a racist? That is ludicrous. We’ve got people pouring across our border who want La Reconquista. You’re big on tossing around your Hypochondriac label, but you’ve really got your head in the sand if you see nothing to fear from this. Racism has nothing to do with it–culture, security, and economics are the factors.
But at the same time you seem to feel that the Hispanic community is going to reject the Republican party because of disgusting comments made by people on the fringe, despite the fact that the vast majority of Republicans are not racist or prejudiced.
The problem is that the vast majority of Republicans are a silent majority, while the minority is exceptionally loud-mouthed. Those “disgusting comments made by people on the fringe” are going to be the Hispanic perception of the GOP, because it’s what they see and hear. That’s why the GOP needs to get in there and loudly disown these idiots.
But the GOP isn’t doing that.
Aj, in the end how many of these people actually do a lot of Party work. I am going to stand up for the GOP here I guess. I used to post on FR. I stopped because the people there long ago became a part of the problem and not the solution.
I am willing to bet very few go and volunteer down at the local party office. I am willing to bet that very few of these people go and are involved in Women Republican Clubs and the Pacaderym Clubs we have in this nation. You know the grunt people who do the work. I have met very few people in these forums that are ward or preciet Captians or that on local or state central committees.
In the end, our efforts would be better placed running for Party offices. It is so easy to get elected to these things where one can make a real difference.
You nailed it Cobalt. The GOP allowed it to continue, and when Bush or Graham or Lott noted that problem they were decried for turing ON THE BASE!
The BASE took the comments to be about them! Which means deep down THEY know something about their motives we did not know.
When I called the fringe immigration hypochondriacs people volunteered to be the target of that label. When Graham and others noted the racism and bigotry the got slammed. The party DEFENDED these people and lashed out at Graham and the others.
It was worse than silent support – it was savage denial.
Cobalt,
I think I might have been a little unclear, I agree with your assessment of the GOP’s failing in this regard. My point, however, was that the same is not required of the Hispanic community. In many ways, there is a silent majority of Hispanics as well. They don’t march with Mexican flags, burn the American flag, or tell the white racists to go back to Europe. BUT, you don’t see that silent majority on the news, you see the extremists. And yet, we are asked to look beyond the extremists to the Hispanic community as a whole – which is the right thing to do. But as your post illustrates, you think that the Hispanic community’s impression of the GOP (silent majority and all) is going to be dictated by the GOP’s extremists.
So why does the GOP have to look deeper, but the Hispanic community either doesn’t have to, or isn’t expected to?
smill1953
“We’ve got people pouring across our border who want La Reconquista.”
I think very few immigrant workers really care or even have a concept of Reconquista
loneferret,
Why would I go to the radical sites? Does Aryan Nation represent America? The KKK?
totally ridiculous
AJ,
I would say the KKK types posting on FR don’t represent America or the GOP any more than say the Aryan nation’s website does…
No one here judges the average Hispanic person because of what La Raza says, so why is it expected that Hispanics can judge my party based on what some idiot says on FR or anywhere else?
My point, however, was that the same is not required of the Hispanic community.
We cannot control the actions of those outside the GOP; only the actions of those within it. We cannot force the Hispanic community to understand that the GOP isn’t a bunch of racists and bigots (although, as AJ has pointed out, any attempt to condemn such racism and bigotry was itself savagely attacked by “the base” [Arabic translation: al-Qaeda]). We may be able to force the GOP to make the effort to explain itself to the Hispanic community, to renounce these dirtballs, and undo at least some of the damage.
You can’t control how others perceive you; you can only control the signals you give others to perceive.
Because there are TONS of those people (Michael Savage) out there. And when we did call people on it we were decried for ‘name calling’.
LOL! If some one said Americans are dumb I am pretty sure only the dumb Americans would be insulted, since the rest of us would know we are not dumb. What is amazing is I think deep down a lot of people felt they had been exposed and insulted.
“LOL! If some one said Americans are dumb I am pretty sure only the dumb Americans would be insulted, since the rest of us would know we are not dumb. What is amazing is I think deep down a lot of people felt they had been exposed and insulted.
Left by AJStrata on June 29th, 2007”
HA HA HA….Hammer….Nail….right on the head.
I wish I thought the GOP would make an effort to explain itself to the Hispanic community. I get the impression that the GOP fears everyone except President Bush. Who else have you seen the GOP stand up to?
AJ
You reject existence and influence of some extremists and then in the same breath cherry pick to worst of comments you find that you try to project onto others.
I suggest most by a long shot don’t fit into either category.
This happens to all incumbents. Everyone beats up on the President in the second terms. I believe it also happened to Reagan.
From what I have seen, Bush is holding up.
Biglsufan, you assume that most who post here are not really “involved” in party politics. While I cannot speak for the rest of the posters, I am party chair for my county GOP. I have also served as a delegate to the state and national conventions, have been on plank committees, have worked the Get Out The Vote program for the last four elections and have been on the committee to include minorities (although whites are now a minority in Texas that is not the “minorities” I am talking about) in our election process.
Team this up with volunteer work when Katrina hit, leaving my home state to help fellow Americans (mostly black) in need and getting books for Hispanics to learn English through a church program (my Spanish is not good enough to teach English as a second language).
I am not an idle citizen who thinks that I have no responsibility to give back part of what I have been given as an American. But I resent the insults that have been hurled at me on this site because I am not, nor have I ever been, a racist or “immigration hypochondriac”. I am a Texan, an American, a Christian, a conservative and am not racist.