Posted on 06/01/2007 5:41:16 PM PDT by Clintonfatigued
However, now I do not feel alone. Peggy Noonan has a new column up in the Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal. She has clearly said what has been getting me down. I think I knew what was up, but couldn't put a finger on it. I knew it centered around the immigration debate, and the way our congressional leaders are behaving. That sentiment especially includes Mr. Bush too, but when I read this column, I felt like Charlie Brown yelling at Lucy at her Psychology booth when he yells, "That's it!" when trying to identify why he can't get into the Christmas spirit.
Try this clip on for size :
The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.
For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.
But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."
The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic--they "don't want to do what's right for America." His ally Sen. Lindsey Graham has said,
(Excerpt) Read more at redstate.com ...
What amazed me is that they stuck with him this long. He has been derelict of duty, presiding over the largest domestic spending increase in history, the intrusion of federal government into an amazing plethora of areas once reserved to municipalities and states, has crafted a foreign policy full of entrapments and entanglements that would have made Woodrow Wilson proud, and turned our (understandable and CORRECT) desire for justice and retribution after terrorist attacks into the most despicable, terrorist sponsoring (yeah, I said it, and it is TRUE), pathetic attempt at bureaucratic nation building we have seen in years. We have morphed the "war on terror" into a bureaucratic boondoggle of attempting to fit Jeffersonian Democracy over a seething pustule of Islamic Theonomic Fanaticism, and are too stubborn to admit "we made a big mistake here."
All these (decidedly NOT conservative values) were swallowed (sometimes greedily) by the conservative base, which has been willing to accept increasing statism and socialism in the name of a "war on terror" and "big government conservatism"(whatever THAT is supposed to mean).
It took the immigration issue to finally wake people up to realize "hey, this guy is just not a conservative."
Well, duh. Welcome to the party.
Great post. You have a way with words.
I wasn’t trying to refute your point. I was trying to reinforce it. :-)
Thanks for the clarification.
My own preferences in this area have been admittedly colored by the fact that I lead an introductory bible study for some latino men, and have seen some of them come to faith in Christ. I have grown to love these folks deeply, and my perception on who they are is admittedly skewed by this fact. It also REALLY pisses me off, therefore, when I see some of the heartless and arrogant stuff freepers sometimes post on this issue.
It is also amusing to see the snotty accusations that people have left about me and my rxns on this issue, ranging from being Latino myself, to having parents who are illegals, to profiting from them in some way, to being a DU liberal.
There, for anyone wondering why I am so "soft" on immigration, I have now "outed" myself!
Do you think that the President did not look at all type of studies pro and con for legalizing the illegal immigrants and made his opinion based on the overall balance of these studies and researches? I am sure he did and he faced the reality scenario that I have been discussing on this forum.
It is a sad fact but that is the truth. And no matter how you and me try we cannot change their opinion on this issue, the same as they cannot change ours. However I am certain of this:
(1) If the bill passes, the illegal immigrants who are here are going to stay here legally and work legally for John Smith who is seeking workers who are willing to do cheap labor and provide John with good profit.
(2) If the bill dies, the illegal immigrants who are here are going to remain here and John Smith who hired them for cheap labor and good profit is going to keep hiring them for the same reasons and no power in this world is going to stop it.
Yep, despite the fact that 80% of THE PEOPLE want them gone and the border restricted. Why can't you and Bush understand that THE PEOPLEs' will is what is supposed to be done? It isn't a dictatorship.
While I do think he studied the problem, I don't think he studied it throughly like he did the stem cell issue, where he tried to be clear headed and federal.
Instead, I think his opinion was largely based upon his time as Governor of a Border State.
We saw in the Education Bill at the start of his Presidency that like many Governors going to the Presidency they are most comfortable dealing with issues they understand based upon past experience. That led him to put the Federal Government in where only the state governments should have been. He was lured by the bi-partisan flavor of a magic bullet. It didn't gain him appreciation across the political aisle.
The federal responsibility is very different from the position he was in previously both on education and on immigration.
He took the position that he was going to Solve a massive problem with a reform bill very early in his first term. I think his solution solves nothing. Instead, it makes the situation worse and plays into the hands of Democrats wanting open borders.
I actaully think the issue of how he is positioning himself now is all open to speculation and not so important to diagnose. The people that have really let us down are the senior Republican Senators and I think they have sold Bush on the idea of using what little political capital he might have left in defending their stinker of a bill.
Bush is a sincere and generous man. That, however, doesn't make him right when he is wrong.
I don't believe that is so. I would be one of the persons who responded positively when asked if we should have secure borders. I am also for expelling a good number of those here illegally.
This does NOT translate into some type of forced Exodus for 20 million people. It ain't gonna happen and should not happen, and it just muddies up the waters to insist on such silliness.
He said, ""This is our home, and WE get to decide who comes into our home!"
What do you think of that comment?
ping for later
I agree with him 100% on what he said. However I do not see how this relate to the issue that we are debating in term of the 12 million illegal immigrants who are here and the need of an important segment of the American economy for the cheap labor that the illegal immigrants are providing.
That's where you fail, JV. America is NOT supposed to be about cheap illegal labor that profits the few and exploits the poor. At least slave ownners had to provide for their 'cheap labor' instead of demanding tax paying US citizens do it. What you want is exploitation, not free markets.
Wrong. John Smith will have to find more Illegals because our new Citizens will be demanding at least the minimum wage PLUS benefits. There goes his cheap labor pool.
(2) If the bill dies, the illegal immigrants who are here are going to remain here and John Smith who hired them for cheap labor and good profit is going to keep hiring them for the same reasons and no power in this world is going to stop it.
There won't be as many Illegal immigrants here, because the power to stop them will be that we finally get serious about enforcing the existing laws on our books. John Smith will be heavily fined and won't find it so cheap or profitable to hire "illegals" anymore.
And I don't care what the price of cherries is...cuz they're way too expensive now anyway..
sw
The labor force in the US is 151 millions people (CIA Worldfact Book) and the latest unemployment rate is 4.5%. As you know 2%-3% of the population is unemployable due to different issues, so we are left with a real unemployment rate of 1.5% to 2.5%. Let us take 2.5% of the labor force who are looking for a job, that means 3.75 million people. If all these 3.75 million people get some of the jobs that the 12 million illegal immigrants are doing, we are left with approximately 8 million jobs to fill where there are no US citizens, legal permanent resident (like myself) to fill.
Hey jv, how is it that I can disagree with you so intensely on the war in Iraq, and find myself agreeing with so much of what you say re: the immigration issue?
Please look at post 874 that I posted and you see another major problem that no one is discussing on this forum.
And the MILLIONS of self employed landscapers, craftsmen, farmers, etc. are out of business because of cheap imported labor. NONE of them show on the umemployment rolls, Jv , because they WERE self employed. Now they’re losing everything they have so a few corporations can endulge in their subsidized labor. It’s unseemly and immoral. This country means more to us than ‘profits’. A concept you cannot grasp.
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