Perhaps a little reminder is in order:
If Mexicans can over our border illegally and without detection, so can these guys.
Posted on 06/06/2006 11:01:33 AM PDT by catholicfreeper
I apologize for light-to-non-existant posting. We’ve had out-of-state company in for the funeral, etc, and I was wondering why I seemed to have no energy for even answering my emails - then I got my CBC today and realized WHY I was so tired…but I should be back on my feet in a day or so…or so.
Meanwhile, plodding through my emails, I note that Van Morrison is promising (or threatening) to play this summer at a local venue and I was wondering if anyone has ever seen him live and would recommend going? The last time I attended a concert at this particular theater I ended up getting into a testy brouhaha with some elites and scandalizing my husband, so I’ve decided since I can’t behave around human people I will only go to concerts that I really can’t resist. Morrison might be one of those irresistable Celts that I am drawn to (although not because of his looks, I must admit…I am a superficial girl, it seems) so if you have been to his show and found it a stinker, let me know and then perhaps I’ll lose interest!
I AM, in fact, plodding through emails right now - there are a ton of them, and so many of them are so kind…and so many of them are so moving as you have taken the time to share with me your own family’s experiences with cancer or untimely deaths, that the going is slow. I will try to get them answered by week’s end, though. In the meantime, please don’t mind me if I ramble a bit…as I’ve said before when the blood count is screwy, I tend to be screwy as well. And mean, too, sometimes!
I’ve read nothing about politics in the last few days (and curiously, I haven’t missed it) and I am way behind on my blog-reading but I liked this piece by neo-neocon on ballet, baseball and blogging. Yes, neo has actually found the similarities therein.
Oh! That reminds me, I DID read something about politics! Someone (a reader who doesn’t much like me, lately) sent to me Peggy Noonan’s latest, in which she wonders if it’s not the right time for the emergence of a third party. “Perot was ahead of his time!” this reader wrote to me, “he was just 15 years too soon! There is no reason why a third party candidate can’t work in this climate and I’m thinking Newt!”
Aware that I was likely not reading much online, this reader also informed me that lots of the National Review folks were also talking third party. Maybe they are, I haven’t checked. If they are, that’s pretty interesting, particularly in light of what I wrote here on May 26th:
Maybe I should launch a conspiracy theory of my own…say…oh, something silly, like maybe this hysteria is just the conservatives doing everything they can to foment enough discord and discontent to create the “demand” for a third party candidate.
Hmph. That is interesting. It also explains - a little, anyway - a question that has been so baffling to some which is, why - after 30 years of disinterest - is the illegal immigration so urgent now, at this precise moment? And why are some on the right so vehement that nothing less than “shipping them all back” will do? Why there is no interest, with these folks, in allowing a guy who has been here for some years and demonstrated his peacable and hard-working intentions any sort of “plea bargain” in which he may legalize his status?
Oh, I forgot, “illegal is illegal…” and some on the right are becoming all they hate.
As I wrote here, there are plenty of things to not like in the senate immigration bill as it stands, but I’m increasingly convinced that the GOP will do “nothing” and the far right will call that a better thing, on principal, than action. Better to have your principals and nothing else, than a less-than-perfect bill seems to be the prevailing wisdom for some.
Which, if you are buying the line that illegal immigration is the most pressing issue of the day, makes no sense at all.
Unless…unless the whole point of the exercise is not to actually do anything about illegal immigration, but to - in fact - create the furor and momentum needed for that third party idea…then the prevailing wisdom makes sense. Then it seems to have some purpose, at least, to its thrust and motion.
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn No traveller returns, puzzles the will And makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. Hamlet, Act III
More and more I am distrustful of “movements.” I distrust anything the media pronounces as “new.” I left the Democrat party when it seemed to become full of “movements” to which I was expected to conform without question. What I’m seeing on the right now is a similar thrust. I have read a very well-respected right-wing blog which has essentially broken down the immigration argument to: If you don’t agree that simply means you’re too stupid to get it, and therefore you should just get out of the way and let the smart folks take over.
Ronald Reagan would not have have liked this, I don’t think.
I think if the right thinks they can pull together a third party that can make them happy and represent the concerns of a majority of voters, they’re deluding themselves. It might be true that “a conservative wins by being conservative,” and it might be true that the American voter is trending more conservative than not. But Americans are not extremists - they distrust extremism (which is exactly why they are trending conservative - the left has gotten too extreme). If the right comes off as the inflexible, moralistic, preachy and paranoid cousin of the unhinged left, then yer average, fair-thinking Americans will find themselves unable to follow. I know I’m trending that way, myself.
It strikes me as humorous - sadly. It’s very, very funny that folks are ready to do an exact replay of 1992, with an exact result. And as far as Newtie is concerned, well…stap my vitals if I can figure out how the same people who tell me they would never vote for Rudy Giuliani because he is “thrice married” have no problem endorsing the “thrice married” Newtie who, btw, told one of those wives he was divorcing her as she was recovering from cancer surgery.
“Illegal is illegal…” but it’s amazing what you can overlook when you really want to, isn’t it?
UPDATE: Having been “out of the loop” for the past ten days or so, I missed this very good piece by Jim Geraghty (I am still a Geraghtian…). I agree that for conservatives to win in ‘08 they’re going to have to stop the infighting and find a way to promote conservative values without going too far - so far as to make those values unpalatable to the rest of the nation. I found the Geraghty piece thanks to this post at Called as Seen, which also links to Mark Tapscott who says ” Tapscottia Seems to be Growing”. Whenever I start to see people excited by movement - which tends to convince others that, since a movement is growing it must be “right,” - I always remember what Chesterton said:
“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.” - Illustrated London News 4/19/30 and “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” - Everlasting Man, 1925 and “The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.” - ILN 10-28-22 and Right is right, even if nobody does it. Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong about it. - All Things Considered and “It is terrible to contemplete how few politicians are hanged.” - The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21 and “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” What’s Wrong with the World, 1910 (yes…even a less-than-perfect immigration bill…)
Then again, some readers might not appreciate my quoting Chesterton, these days, as he was a Catholic and some of you are accusing us Catholics of only supporting the President’s immigration plan because Mexicans are Catholic…or something. Those emails were a little confusing.
Also, this post is edited because I had read this report that the president was retracting his support for the Marriage Protection Amendment and wasn’t aware that it wasn’t true. For the record, I’m not lining up for gay marriage, but I don’t know if I support a whole amendment to the constitution about it.
I've been asking that question for a month now and have gotten nothing but the same lame "It was ALWAYS *MY* #1 issue!"/"It's all we ever talk about around here!" BS.
The same folks who now say it's their #1 issue seem to have forgotten that on the past two presidential election days. Bush's stance has been consistent, and I guess my internet provider somehow managed to delete all those FR postings.
I'm now convinced for the first time that the Republicans will lose in November, and some of the posters here don't care that this will lead to impeachment hearings. That it will lead to WORSE illegal immigration policies under the Dems never seems to occur to them--they just want their payback, and of course in two years their fantasy Perfect Conservative party will sweep into power and make everything better.
Perhaps a little reminder is in order:
If Mexicans can over our border illegally and without detection, so can these guys.
that should read: "... can come over..."
Yes--for you.
How many illegal Mexicans were involved with 9-11?
Tell me, how can you let millions of Mexicans over the border without inspection and be assured that there aren't jihadis among their number? Why, you might even be surprised to learn that we've already caught jihadis sneaking over the border... and who knows how many we haven't caught? Without real border security, we'll never know... until a small town somewhere in middle America becomes as familiar as Beslan.
I have not given up yet on Republican control of the House after Novemeber. Its hard to tell whats happening because the internet including Fr and other blogs at times, are Echo Chambers. The National Review for some reason is taking this stance too. Actually, I think I know why but I will leave that for another day
Case in point, On FR , other Forums and Very Right wing blogs it seems like the Republican Party is to going to pieces. Last night someone told me that the Senate Bill was the "Worst in History". Well as I said just off the top of my head I suspect the Alien and Sediation Acts, the Fugative Slave acts, Some of our legislation dealing with the Indians, the Legislation that funded and Interned Japanesee Americnas in prison camps during WWII might have actually been worse. However there is a effort and its coorindated I think that is producing this hysteria. Its interesting but when I go to the bar and talk politics or when politics is brought up in social occasions, I am finding that most people Don't think the Republic is danger of collapse, that the Republican Party is full of Traitors, or that illegal immigration is the biggest issue since the American Revolution.
I am not saying there is no need to be concerned ,but so much of this seems to be hyped up and on purpose for some reason
Al Qaeda declares war on us, and attacks us in 2001 using Muslim killers, some of whome got into the country legally.
It just logically follows that nearly 5 years later we all at once start calling for people to sit out the election and let the Democrats take over because of Mexican illegals. Because of what happened on 9-11-01. Yeah.
Over at DU they're going to be laughing it up bigtime in November. No one believed the Dems could take back the Congress, so they just got the Republican "conservatives" to do it for them.
Things'll be so much better in the WOT and there will be so many fewer illegals from Mexico once the Dems take over.
Pre-9/11, national security wasn't the big concern because we were not at war and did not understand the threat of Islam.
Post-9/11, we are at war and the threat of Islam is becoming more and more widely recognized. Thus, what would have been regarded as a paranoid measure in the prewar era is plain commonsense today.
I really struggle to understand why the connection between establishing actual control of our own national borders and the essential duty of national security - especially during wartime! - does not compute for you. This is so basic and obvious (to me, at least - but then again I have a decent, if layman's, understanding of military history and strategy) that I have trouble taking seriously counter-arguments that don't acknowledge the basic military fact that if you leave your flank wide open and let everybody know about it, sooner or later your enemy is going to take advantage of that fact - if they haven't already.
Even in the absence of a war, controlling our borders is a fundamental basis of self-governance. See the definition of "sovereignty" - it requires border control to be an actual, independent nation.
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