Posted on 02/11/2005 10:55:36 AM PST by Jim Robinson
The shot heard around the Internet has been fired on FreeRepublic.com The owner Jim Robinson and his moderators have launched a sniper style purge against members that disagree with the President’s ‘guest worker’ amnesty or support more control of illegal immigration. Free Republic is an amazing tool for those looking for a good debate and news from around the country.
The problem for the administration of the site is that their creation is allowing the participants to learn that the Bush immigration record and plans are shockingly out of line with the views of most conservatives. The management’s answer to this conflict between the majority of conservatives and the influence of the White House on their Web site has become electronic executions and censorship.
Members and readers of Free Republic would be surprised to know that many members of their community have fallen silent on the discussions about illegal immigration lately because free speech is an illusion on FR.com. They are silent because they have been banned from the Web site without warning, cause, or explanation in most cases. For weeks the moderators have been suspending and banning new members that chimed in quickly on the immigration debates.
Now this trend has broadened as the first groups of long-term users were suspended or banned this past week. Although Robinson and his staff removed many members of the Free Republic community in the first few days of the purge, those that religiously support President Bush’s immigration plan, open borders and approve of public benefits for illegal aliens remain on the forum. Those that were banned were the members that wanted more done to control illegal immigration and a strict observance to the President’s Oath of Office.
Free Republic Open Borders Lobby.
Write this thought you came up with on a piece of paper and hang it on the refrigerator.
At some point,you will really wonder how it came to you.
I shot a stray cat the other day who was continuously dragging road kill into my stored boat and destroying the carpets, stinking it up and wrecking the upolstry.
I violated several laws. I could face fines and even jail time. (1yr)
But I am a model citizen and family man with a kid in college and grandbabies.
The penalty for crossing the border that we have now in law is much less severe.
Bull crap! They drive around with Mexican flags on their cars. They fill our airwaves with Mexican-speaking radio and TV stations. I have to press "1" every time I call a major business because I have committed the crime of speaking our native language. My state forms, voter registration forms, ballots, etc. all come in English and Spanish. There are fights in the Arizona school systems over what to do with all of the kids who don't/won't speak English. There are parts of this country that I've been in where it is hard to find an english-speaker in chain restaurants like KFC, Subway, Popeye's, etc. I was in a Wal-Mart in ElPaso and I felt like I was in a foreign country. Few cashiers spoke English and all of the announcements over the PA system were in Spanish. There are predominantly Mexican areas of Mesa, AZ (and I'm sure other cities) where Anglos are not welcome and should not enter. This experiment where we're permitting millions of foreigners who speak a different language and who subscribe to a FAILED culture (if it wasn't a failure, why would they be literally dying to leave Mexico) to come into our country unchecked is unfair to those of us already here. It depresses the wages, fills the hospital emergency rooms with people who can't pay, populates violent gangs, raises crime rates, costs states like AZ and CA billions of dollars, overcrowd schools, import poverty, carry contagious third-world diseases, destroys the desert area where the invaders stream across, packs our prisons full of foreign criminals, etc.
The fact is they are NOT assimilating here and any perceived benefit is far outweighed by the problems they bring.
But, again, you've made it clear that you openly support illegal immigration. Jim Robinson himself does not. You pollute immigration threads with your pro-illegal immigration agenda and imply that anyone against illegal immigration is racist or xenophobic. You are a disrupter of such threads, pure and simple, and if anyone should be banned for causing problems related to the topics of border security and illegal immigration, it should be you who has instigated flamewar after flamewar with your name-calling, pro-crime agenda. Robinson should ban you if he was being fair about this issue at all.
ping
However, I might just respond that my suggestion was stupid and perhaps idiotic, but never reached the level of asinine.
You might then counter that my idea was clearly idiotic, and if I'd agree that it was also outrageous, the conversation could end peacefully.
I've been more than free to post my disagreements with Bush on immigration and open borders. Where's the problem?
In sight of what, human procreation?
JMO, you have unmasked yourself as a Sierra Club member or sympathizer(i.e zero population growth, abortion, etc. etc), hiding behind and flaming the very small xenophobe and racist wing of the right.
It sounds to me like you are confused as to who is a conservative and who isn't.
I know the exact place you are speaking of. I used to live about a mile from that area.
There is another area between Chandler and Tempe that is the same way. The street signs are even in Spanish.
It's something that doesn't really exist. The people being called part of this mythical FROBL don't really support open borders at all. They also don't support solutions to the illegal immigrant problem that won't work.
They recognize that there is a problem, and want a solution, but also understand that it is impossible to shut down the borders of the US.
What's the right solution? Heck, I don't know. Maybe the one coming out of Congress right now will help, but the problem's not new, and there's not going to be a quick solution.
Too much money is tied up in the economics of illegals, unfortunately, and it's going to be really, really difficult to cut off that end.
The agricultural community, for example, is heavily dependent on immigrant workers, and not just the legal kind. It's not just in California, but in every agricultural state.
Get rid of the illegals, and the ag community will scream bloody murder, I guarantee. They don't want to have to pay the going rate for citizen workers, and that's the bottom line.
President Bush is trying to appease everyone, and that's pretty much impossible. He may well end up appeasing nobody, and that's the crux of the problem.
I have no solution to offer...it's a bigger problem than I can comprehend. Is there a solution at all? I don't know. Probably not. The problem is a very long-standing one.
Where do we draw the line? How many legal immigrants should we let in and why? We let in something like 2 million every year right now. Something like 98% of the entire world is worse off than Mexico. Why should Mexico come to the front of the line? That 2 million we let in is just a small percentage of the annual birthrate of all of the nations worse off than Mexico. There's no way we can help any of these impoverished nations by taking in everyone who wants to emigrate. And what kind of people do we want here? Poor, undeducated and unskilled? No. Skilled and educated? Sure, we want only the best and brightest to come in. They're better but it does their home country no favors if we take away their best and brightest. There's a major problem in Mexico that all of their young men are abandoning their towns to come north. This has left entire towns devoid of all but old men. And these towns are primarily farming towns and now the elderly have to try to work the fields. The mayor of town came back from Mexico a few months ago and reported just that.
Such an admirable lot, they are......
Perhaps so. Feel free to explain it to me.
Thank you. That is a new one to me. :)
It is here in this forum that I have an opportunity to hear the pro's and the con's. Jim Rob you cannot know how much I personally appreciate this forum and your handling of it. You have been the most tolerant person I know in dealing with malcontents. More so than I. I salute you sir and thank you.
There was a saying in our church meetings, "There is room for disagreement, but there is no room for disagreeableness."
It is indeed...of course it was a song made up by a bunch of young adolescent guys, so...you have to take it for what it is worth! The reason I know this, is because I know "TheDentist" and it was his older brother (the clown in our group) who wrote it...:)
I can only remember a part of the first verse (remember, I am trying to dredge this up from nearly 30 years ago!
WORMS
(andante)
When I was a young boy
And my Mother tried to feed me
I used to get as green as I could get
Cause the things she used to serve
Without a thought for injury
And I never could be sure what I had et...
WORMS! WORMS! WORMS! WORMS! (this is chanted as if a bagpipe is doing it)
Worms are good. Worms are great. I eat'm by the pound,
Baked or broiled, fried or fricassied.
You can often find me with my mouth upon the ground
Sucking gently 'til they're up between my teeth!
OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH
WORMS! WORMS! WORMS! WORMS!
And I don't remember the rest. I presume we were too pleased with ourselves and laughed so hard we could never get beyond that verse...:)
Of course, I am having visions of "Lord of the Flies" remembering this time!
You have NO idea what you're talking about. Tancredo and Buchanan did not just wake up one morning and say they want to do something about the border. People who live on the border who see the problem showed it to them and woke them up to the problem. I live on the border and I'm far more qualified than you to determine if we have wide open border. I can see it with my own two eyes and, yes, the border is wide open!
And another thing, I'm sick of you trashing good people like Tom Tancredo and Pat Buchanan. You have proven that you aren't worthy to lick the bottom of their boots. I don't agree with everything they say, but they're both well educated, well spoken, well informed and are right on a number of issues. I've taken to disagreeing with Buchanan's assessment of the WOT, but his positions on border security and illegal immigration are spot on. I've met both men and your constant attacks against them are just plain wrong. Too many people have felt bullied by you to not stand up for Pat Buchanan and Tom Tancredo. I'm not going to be bullied by your loudmouthed disruptor troll-like charges of racism and such to anyone who might have some agreement with Buchanan and Tancredo on some issues. You need to cut that crap out.
Lol nice try at your baiting Dane but won't work, sorry.
Couldn't help but notice though you totally failed to address not an opinion but the fact mass immigration was cutoff in 1925, where 99% of the immigrants were from Europe partly due to assimilation problems. Btw, my grandparents were part of that Great Wave.
Now we can have immigration, but it has to be within reason and in numbers the country can absorb. Your free-for-all beliefs is exactly why there's turmoil brewing in the GOP, the vast majority of the electorate doesn't support it.
I'm behind and you 100% Jim! Free Republic is great and don't let these trolls and racists bother you. I appreciate you keeping it clean.
Well, I'm outta here for the afternoon now, but I will say this... Mexico's little pamphlet from a few months back indicates their approval of breaking our laws. It makes me sick.
To be continued... :)
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