Posted on 05/10/2023 11:34:02 PM PDT by Noumenon
Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Agribusiness) is waging jihad against his fellow Republicans in the House over H.R. 2, an immigration bill that has been working through the House since January. He has specifically targeted the E-Verify provision, that would require employers to use the system, which has been in place for decades, to verify that their employees are legally allowed to work in the country. He has been on Twitter railing against the E-Verify system.
There are two schools of thought as to why Massie has picked out this provision of the bill as his reason for opposing it. One is the old “Republicans donors like cheap labor” argument, which is mostly true. Massie gets a lot of money from agribusiness, which relies on illegal aliens to work in meat packing plants, commercial farming enterprises and food processing facilities. What you never find in a food processing plant these days is anyone speaking English.
The other explanation for Massie’s berserk opposition to this provision is that he is a libertarian who spasmodically opposes government programs. He has been dressing up his arguments in libertarian jibber-jabber. He claims that Joe Biden will use the system to prevent normal Americans from working. According to Massie, this program will require you to get permission from Joe Biden in order to work, which is a weird claim, but consistent with libertarianism.
In fairness, both explanations could be true. In order to get into the House of Senate, you have to be willing to take bribes from the donor class. The reason both parties support the current chaos is because both parties have the same paymasters. Those paymasters think borders are bad for business, so they oppose anything that would result in an orderly border policy. Hiring libertarian goofballs to be the messenger on this makes it look principled, rather than cynical.
The donor class will get serious about immigration when they start feeling the pain of immigration in their own lives. This is what happened a century ago. When newly imported anarchist and communist started killing rich people, rich people suddenly got religion on immigration. In short order Congress passed bills effectively ending immigration for over half a century. We will see the same thing once a rich person is murdered by Mexican cartel members.
There is another reason for Massie’s behavior. He may be a sociopath. His claims about E-Verify are obvious lies, yet he tells them with enthusiasm. The system has been in place for decades, but it has been voluntary. In theory, employers are prohibited from hiring illegal aliens, but they ignore the law. The point of making E-Verify mandatory is to force employers to comply with existing law. Massie’s claims about it being a new government program are an absurd lie.
Putting that aside, what we are seeing here is an example of how the Republican Party is an ongoing fraud on its voters. It exists only as a relief valve. You get mad at the Democratic administration and vote Republican. They promise to do something about the latest thing, but then they always find a “principled reason” for not doing something about the latest thing. You see all of their favorite tricks in this latest immigration bill that Biden has already promised to veto.
The first trick is what Massie is doing. He claims to oppose open borders in theory, but he can never find a proposal he likes. Either the proposed solution violates his libertarian principles or, as he argues in this case, the proposed solution is not perfect, so not good enough for him. If you read his Twitter, you will see that he is playing both of these tricks on his voters right now. He says E-Verify will not work and it is a violation of his principled stand against the government.
Of course, the only reason the House is pushing this bill along is the Republicans know it has no chance of becoming law. When they had the House, the Senate, and Trump in the White House, they could not be bothered. Trump was sitting there with his pen ready to sign an immigration bill, but there were always more important things to do like moving commas around the tax code. Republicans only get serious on immigration when they have no chance of passing legislation.
The worst part of this fraud is that people like Thomas Massie deliberately use the virtues of their voters against them. In this case, he is waving the bloody flag of Covid around to scare his voters. “See what they did with Covid now imagine what they will do with this program!” Meanwhile, over three million illegals have entered the country since the start of the year. Millions more are queued up. America is facing an invasion and the Republicans are aiding and abetting it.
Stanton Evans famously quipped “We have two parties here, and only two. One is the evil party, and the other is the stupid party.” Ever since it has been assumed that the Democrats are the evil party and the Republicans the stupid party. The truth is the parties are neither of those things. It is the voters. People who vote for Democrats are evil, while the people who continue to vote Republican are stupid. Only when enough people smarten up will be able to address the evil.
I have to admit, something is off with Massie. In some ways he seems to have good values and goals that align with America First republicans and not so good in some ways. I really don’t get it.
We need e-verify. We also need to deport all illegals ASAP and get rid of the outdated anchor baby loophole.
Massie talks a good game, but he’s completely ineffective as a legislator. He’s made a career out of taking “principled” stands and being on the losing end of 425-10 votes in the House of Representatives.
Sorry, that is ridiculous. Since the 1960s, I am usually the best informed person in the room on the three or four political issues I care about the most.
I have voted Republican for 50 years because there is no practical alternative.
Conservatives have always been a numerical minority. The best we can hope for are Presidents like Coolidge and Reagan and possibly Trump, who impede or temporarily stop the relentless pressure from the Political Left.
Massie is simply falling prey to immigration just like every one else who share his political leanings do including Rand Paul.
Every single Losertarian I know including both of the above mentioned are open border morons.
Paul is my senator and I missed being in Massie’s district by maybe 6 miles. Kentuckians know these two.
Massie is Deep State’s.
I think the verify is a very important step and tool to control illegal immigration. If we remove the jobs, the ability of illegal aliens to get work, they won’t be able to stay. This, of course, assumes that they are not giving work permits when they’re released at the border by Biden.
Ditto
Republicans only get serious when they have no chance of passing legislation.
There are two clubs. One with huge amounts of money and very few members. The other, with very little money and huge amounts of members. Everybody on here knows in which club they are. As some comedian (was it Carlin?) said, it’s a club, but you’re not in it. There are no real political parties representing the people any more. It’s money vs. very little money.
There are laws on the books to close the border... that’s all that’s needed.
True enough. But as long as we have Vichy Republican swine (and that’s most of them) clutching their pearls and toppling to their fainting couches at the prospect of enforcing those laws, nothing will be done.
Whatever the bill includes must guarantee anyone who enters this country illegally will never be given a path to citizenship!!!
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