Posted on 01/07/2004 6:06:39 AM PST by shortstop
In politics, it’s good to be up for grabs. And it’s miserable to be a sure thing.
As President Bush will prove today. In an expected announcement of sweeping amnesty and Social Security benefits for illegal Mexican aliens, the president will kick conservatives in the teeth in order to woo Latino voters.
It’s clear proof that the adage “Dance with the one what brung ya” doesn’t apply in the GOP.
In the GOP, conservatives exist to donate money and vote a straight ticket, and then be ignored. At least in this Administration and by this Congress. Time after time, the principles of those who put George W. Bush in office have been compromised and rejected. And now, on an issue that could forever alter the nature of the United States, conservatives are being betrayed by their president.
And, you could argue, so is the country.
What are the details? We won’t learn until today. But it is expected that a new “adjusted work status” will be announced for most of the eight million Mexicans currently in this country illegally. Also, lifetime Social Security benefits will be guaranteed illegal Mexican aliens – even after they leave the United States – if they pay Social Security tax for as little as 18 months.
Lawbreakers will be rewarded, and the American taxpayer will become the primary funder of the Mexican retirement system.
And billions of dollars of wages earned by illegal aliens will continue to be sent back to Mexico – bleeding our prosperity and continuing as the second largest cash source for the Mexican economy.
Why is this happening?
Why is the Republican president selling out everything you would think his party stands for?
Because the Latino vote is in play.
Simply put, the large number of Latinos in America have not yet clearly identified with a political party. And the Republicans want them. The Democratic Party owns the black vote lock, stock and barrel and the Republican Party wants to do the same with the Latino vote.
Democrats hope to draw Latino voters by convincing them – as they have African-Americans – that they are an underprivileged minority which needs the Democratic Party to avenge it against the larger American culture.
Republicans hope to draw Latino voters by convincing them – as they have American moderates and conservatives – that they are part of the larger American culture.
Democrats want people identified as minorities; Republicans want people identified as the mainstream.
Apparently President Bush believes that the Republican Party can win the heart of Latinos by rewarding millions of illegal Mexican aliens and by creating a welfare entitlement for people who aren’t even Americans.
Specifically, by caving in to a demand by Mexican President Vicente Fox – the author of the policy President Bush will announce today.
Latinos are powerful because they are up for grabs. Conservatives are powerless because they are a sure thing.
Honestly, if conservatives get ticked off at George W. Bush, what are they going to do? Who are they going to vote for?
Howard Dean? Hillary Clinton?
No way.
After being walked on and ignored, conservatives will dutifully come out this fall to support not just President Bush but the Republican Congress. Why?
Because we want judges and cabinet secretaries and protections for guns and free enterprise and property rights – things we didn’t really get this go round but hope to get in the next.
Conservatives are patsies to the Republican Party, just like blacks are patsies to the Democratic Party. Both get stroked at election time, and both get some very pretty speeches, but when it comes time to make laws and keep promises, both groups are roundly ignored by their parties.
Critics of this policy – as comments from the White House spokesman already indicate – are going to be labeled xenophobes and bigots. There will be syrupy quotes about this being a nation of immigrants and how new people coming to America make it a better nation.
Well, it used to be that way. When our foreign forefathers came to America to be Americans.
But those days have passed. Overwhelmingly, Mexicans come to America to be Mexicans. The melting pot is broken. The language is not learned, the culture is not adopted, the customs and values are not acquired.
And in a couple of generations the Latin Quarter is going to refer to that part of America west of Louisiana and south of Oregon and Idaho. There is a broad-based Latinization of the United States underway, a cultural conquest that the Mexican army could not win but the American government is willing to surrender.
We are growing our own Quebec, and it speaks Spanish. Latino immigrants, and specifically Mexicans, are wonderful people. Yet their success in this country – and the continued integrity of this country – are dependant on obeying the law and acquiring the culture and values of the American Constitution and heritage.
And that is not done by rewarding those whose first act on American soil was an immigration crime.
Instead of granting amnesty and rewarding lawbreakers, we should make a guest-worker program that lets Mexican immigrants walk honorably through the front door instead of illegally through the back door. We have the jobs, they want the work, let us bring order to putting the two together.
And then secure the borders, with troops if need be, so that illegal immigration stops.
Reward those who do right, not those who do wrong. Quicker, more efficient legal immigration is right. Amnesty is wrong.
And this fool idea of opening the empty Social Security coffers to Mexican nationals in Mexico is insane.
But if insanity buys votes, in an election year it becomes law.
As soon as you post a web source for your contentions in your reply #206.
All laws are equally just right?
Look at the heavy subsidies paid into cities, implicit & explicit
Are these employers providing health benefits, or just using the local emergency room? Are they getting enterprise zone tax breaks? Subsidized housing for extended families?
Just pointing out that it's not a level playing field.
"I never submitted the whole system of my opinion to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go at all."
Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Francis Hopkinson in 1789.
We need to actively train our own underclass instead of importing low wage employee to shut them out of job opportunities. American need more money for subsistant living than third world country immigrants (legal or illegal).
And just what benefit is that...paying a $1500 fine for breaking the immigration law...you consider that a benefit? And any illegal currently in the US who does not apply for the guest worker program by the deadline will not be eligible for anything but deportation. What they are trying to do is clear up the backlog at the INS so that they can concentrate on the criminal element amongst the illegals, namely those that will NOT apply for this program. Yes, there is an extradition problem with Mexico, but that has more to do with the death penalty than illegal immigration and if we can clear up some of the backlog at INS, and create a database with the info provided by the illegals during registration for this program (fingerprints, photos) that will make it easier to catch those that commit crimes, we will be better off.
I'm hoping its a trick of some sort to stir the Rat pot right before the caucuses/primaries. Can you imagine Howard Dean spewing his opinion on this issue?
The other thing I'm hoping is that it is just a trial balloon, and will get shot down by everybody. Bush gets to say, "I tried," and blame opposition from both left and right as the reason that the status quo is still in effect.
I've been in favor of regulating "guest workers" rather than just continuing the existing system, but the details of this program really shock me. The certification that employers must provide to employ Mexicans (that no Americans would take the jobs) is so thin, you can see through it. All an employer has to do is offer jobs at seven bucks an hour, say that no Americans would take them, then get green cards for Mexicans who live 20 to a single house, to live on that wage. The same employers that would export our jobs to India would jump at that.
This makes my job of trying to convince my new wife's relatives to vote Republican even harder. Even though the Rats are against them on nearly every social issue, they still insist that "Republicans are only for the rich." How else do we explain some of the provisions of this proposed bill?
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