Posted on 01/13/2004 5:54:13 AM PST by JustPiper
Conservative talk-radio star, author says amnesty is betrayal of country
In the latest indication President Bush is having problems with his conservative core political constituency, Michael Savage, one of talk radio's biggest stars, tonight called for the impeachment of President Bush over his plans to legalize millions of illegal aliens.
"This is the worst betrayal of our country in my lifetime," said Savage, whose program is heard on more than 350 stations with an audience reaching some 6 million. His book, "The Savage Nation," last year was No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller's list for five weeks. His follow-up, "The Enemy Within," out just one week, is already No. 8 on the list. Both were published by WND Books.
President Bush
Tonight Savage called Bush a liberal and described him as part of the "enemy within" that is destroying the nation.
Savage created the phrase "compassionate conservative" in 1994, a term picked up by Bush during his presidential campaign – a campaign supported by Savage.
"This is much more serious than dropping your pants for an intern," said Savage. "This is a policy that represents a danger to national security."
Savage is hardly alone in his strong feelings of opposition to Bush's proposal to offer legal status to illegal immigrants. A new ABC News poll finds 52 percent of the nation opposes an amnesty program for illegal immigrants from Mexico, while 57 percent oppose one for illegal immigrants from other countries. Both results are roughly the same as when the administration floated the idea two-and-a-half years ago.
But today in Monterrey, Mexico, Bush reaffirmed his support of the proposal, despite its unpopularity at home. He said it could help illegal immigrants "leave the shadows and have an identity."
At a joint press conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox, Bush warned that his government will not allow the existence in the United States of an underclass of illegal immigrants, but claimed again his proposal is not an amnesty. Amnesty, he said, would only promote the violation of the law and perpetuate illegal immigration.
Bush said his immigration proposal would benefit both the United States and Mexico as it recognizes the contribution of thousands of honest Mexicans who work in the United States.
For his part, Fox embraced Bush's proposal.
"What else can we wish?" Fox said at the news conference with the president.
In the U.S., the latest poll on the controversy shows at least twice as many Americans "strongly" oppose the proposal as strongly support it.
Opposition peaks in Bush's own party: Fifty-eight percent of Republicans oppose his immigration proposal for Mexicans, compared with 50 percent of Democrats. For illegal immigrants other than Mexicans, 63 percent of Republicans are opposed.
Bush reportedly will disclose more details of the plan in his State of the Union address Jan. 20.
Meanwhile, the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 9,000 of the Border Patrol's non-supervisory agents, has told its members to challenge President Bush´s proposed guest-worker program, calling it a "slap in the face to anyone who has ever tried to enforce the immigration laws of the United States," the Washington Times reported today.
The agents were told in a letter from Vice President John Frecker that the proposal offered last week during a White House press conference "implies that the country really wasn't serious about" immigration enforcement in the first place.
"Hey, you know all those illegal aliens you risked 'life and limb' to apprehend? FAH-GED-ABOWD-IT," said Frecker, a veteran Border Patrol agent. "President Bush has solved the problem. Don't be confused and call this an 'amnesty,' even though those who are here illegally will suddenly become legal and will be allowed to stay here. The president assures us that it's not an amnesty," he said.
Last week Bush proposed the sweeping immigration changes that would allow the 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens thought to be in the United States to remain in the country if they have a job and apply for a guest-worker card. The immigrants could stay for renewable three-year periods, after which they could apply for permanent legal residence.
Savage cited a new report published in the City Journal by the Manhattan Institute suggesting there is a major crime wave in the U.S. caused by illegal immigration.
"Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens," the report charges. "Yet in cities where the crime these aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gang-banger for felonious reentry, it is he who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the LAPD’s rule against enforcing immigration law."
The situation is similar, the report says in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Austin and Houston. These "sanctuary policies" generally prohibit city employees, including the cops, from reporting immigration violations to federal authorities, says the report.
"These people are destroying America," said Savage. "That's all I have to say on the subject. But you can talk about it. Talk about it while you can – while America is still a free country, because it's not going to last."
Citing the authority of "Uncle Miltie" Friedman, who's as big a hard-money Republican as you're likely to find, yes, I favor efforts of workers to unionize and bargain collectively. After all, it's free association to begin with, and the last I'd heard, negotiation wasn't illegal.
Considering that employers dispose of vastly greater economic power than the individual employee and are always at a great advantage unless some factor intervenes to level the playing field, and considering furthermore that employers have resorted throughout American history to any number of devices, both legal and illegal, to increase their negotiating leverage versus their employees, I greatly favor workers' bestirring themselves, like free men, to do whatever they can to improve their working conditions or pay. The line of business they and their employer are in, will set the limits of their productivity, and therefore of their compensation.
Friedman also pointed out the social benefit of labor syndicalism in causing employers, very much against their inclination, to "trickle down" the benefits of capitalism to the employee base whose efforts, after all, make these large enterprises possible. It was this oh, so reluctant "trickling", Friedman further pointed out, that created the mass prosperity that made possible the consumer economy and its dazzling array of goods and services that are the matchless glory of the American economy. You may remember the news footage of Russian babushkas weeping silently in front of their TV sets when, under Mikhail Gorbachev's orders, Russian news outlets finally confessed the truth -- that our visions of plenty, our overflowing shelves in huge stores, all the things we take for granted -- were the truth, and that the West had left the equity promises of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the dust.
Also are you a supporter of a raise in the minimum wage to prevent such breaking of people on the wheel?
I favor a thin cushion -- the 'Rats have been bad about pandering on minimum wage -- but it serves a useful social purpose, in taking away the legal advantages to employers of fiercely weaseling down wages below a certain level, so that if they want truly obscene profits, they have to go off the books and start employing people illegally, thus exposing them to the punishment their avarice deserves.
I've never been against making a killing, and bully to the investor or inventor or new-products manager who is able to hit a home run. Bill Gates deserves his billions. But the man who makes a few extra dollars by gouging it out of his already low-paid employees, who takes food off struggling families' tables and tries to doom their kids to vo-tech school even as his own swagger through the doors of Yale, that man wears the chains of Jacob Marley and deserves to bark in hell.
Or at least, failing that, he deserves to have the winds of public policy blow strongly against him. I hope I've made my position clear.
Okay, I'm game. Surprise me. I probably read it at the time, somewhere. Of all people, Soldier of Fortune was running articles -- some of them just rehashes of Los Angeles Times and other reporting -- when I wasn't seeing much about Loral in the mainstream media. But SOF did a good job of connecting the dots, and the picture of the Clinton Administration's involvement in Loral's sales, their Asian political money, and their connection to Chinese gunrunning into California was absolutely damning.
Interesting opinion, however, I was speaking of immigrants under a worker program.
It's all about getting the work done cheaper. There's never a number that the employer has to get -- they're just opportunistically fishing for dirt-cheap wages among desperate people who weren't making it at home because of domestic mismanagement and because their native country's well-to-do enjoy effective control of their labor market and are positively administering and assigning poverty within their society for their own benefit.
Say I am a CEO of company X, I just go and fire 50% of my work force, and brag to the board about saving say $100 million/year. I demand to get $20 million bonus for such savings, and my hand-picked board approves it. What the heck is wrong with this picture! Wake up people and stop thinking in terms of Republican and Democrat. Both are evil worthless leaders. They never empathize with the working American. The working American unions have lost its reputation as well to the demise of the working stiffs.
IMO, I see nothing wrong with that. I lean a little more to the right in the free market. These jobs are taken with free will. However, I could see it getting out of hand if ALL jobs were competitive with foriegn nationals who were willing to make less than the average American.
So of course this becomes an issue of whether we are willing to accepting rising costs on every cheap product that we take for granted. I don't have an answer for it. I'm not willing to buy lettuce at $3 a head. If a foreign nation produces lettuce with cheap labor like we do, and we kick all illegal workers out, that insudtry will no longer be a competitive American business and we will TOTALLY lose out. I'm not sure what it hurts to have these people work here as long as they obey our laws.
It is easy to understand all these liberal agenda initiatives. They mostly stem from the so called NEOCONSERVATIVES that are dominating the policy making posts, OR opressing the policymakers with unrelanting pressure/threats. The eagerness of getting re-elected, coupled with having no worry about the right wing voters since they have no place to go, has worked together to deliver this no win situation for us.
What's wrong with having law abiding foreigners work the fields?
I think my post was talking about Mexicans living in Texas during the Texan war of independence. At the time, they were still, technically, Mexicans, since Texas wasn't a recognized country. After independence, I think the proper word to describe them is Tejanos.
So, would you be in favor of raising taxes on those rich businessmen to pay for the public housing of those poor workers?
I don't believe that for a second. The people come here with their mexican loyalties and mindset, and after they get here, they remain LOYAL TO MEXICO, fly mexican flags, and vote for liberal democrats. Many of today's illegal immigrants aren't interested in citizenship, just leeching off of our society. They have no respect for our laws, no respect for our heritage (they have contempt for it!), no respect for our heroes. They fly mexican flags at soccer games in LA. I believe you need to rethink.
bushrevealed.com
Many Christians are now climbing on board the bandwagon. hahaha. It seems there are many like me pal! Bush presents himself as a sort of "angel of light" while he repeatedly speaks and acts in ways that are contrary to the Christian faith and worldview. That IS A FACT that you cannot deny. Facts speak very loudly!
Boy, that's quite a blanket prejudice view you have.
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