Demonstrators protest Bush's immigration policies in Irvine

modbee ^ | 4/24/06 | gillian flaccus

[LouAvul]

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - Several hundred demonstrators from both sides of the immigration issue protested outside President Bush's speech Monday at an Orange County hotel.

About 50 protesters from the Minuteman Project volunteer border patrol group chanted "Go back to Mexico" and "God Bless America." Nearby, about 150 protesters also chanted and waved peace signs to protest Bush's immigration policy, the war in Iraq and the Minuteman group.

The protest illustrated a political divide in Washington, D.C., where Congress was returning after a two-week recess but remained far apart on whether to crack down on illegal immigrants or embrace them as vital to the U.S. economy.

Bush wants a law that would give temporary guest worker permits to foreigners in low-paying jobs while strengthening border security.

Dee Barrow, a 78-year-old retired sheriff's employee from Upland, said that proposal upset her.

"I'd like to see them start deporting those who are here illegally and start supporting our borders," said Barrow, a Republican who said she voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 because he was "the lesser of two evils."

Nearby, anti-Minuteman demonstrators chanted "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."

Jim Luna, 40, a legal immigrant who came to the United States from Guatemala at 5, said he opposed Bush's policies and believes illegal immigrants are pawns for American corporations.

"They want the cheap labor and Mexico encourages it because they are getting money from all the illegals who send money back," Luna said.

[coconutt2000]

If you want to get a quote in the paper, just use "Bush" and "evil" in the same sentence.

That said, the Left is going wonkers. Even when Bush is essentially on their side of the issue they disagree with him.

[noobiangod]

Open your eyes Bush. The leftwingers still hate you and your former supporters are now protesting you too. If you want to leave office the most hated man in American history you're off to a good start.

[Danae]

Oooo.

I am so underwhelmed.

Legalize drugs, prostitution and speeding while you are at Jose, you forgot to put that on your sign!

Man, some people are just stuck on stupid.

[Paul Ross]

"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."

????

Kind of sounds like the old tune: "I fought the Law, but the Law won...now it's been revised and updated:

I fought the Law, and the Law Lost.

[LS]

This is truly his undoing. It doesn't fit with War on Terror, with an improving economy, with nuthin'. It goes to show that some people have irreconcilable contradictions in their world views. I think Teddy Roosevelt had a similar problem: an effective foreign policy pres, but hopelessly anti-business.

[fantom]

I would say off and running. You know that once the Repubs submit their amnesty bill and are on record , The Dems will find religion on this issue and once again make the pubs look like fools. Anyone who seriously argues that we control the power is not paying attention. The Conservatives do their best work when they are the underdog. They do not know how to handle power or spin.

[negril]

For all you "hate-speech" monitors and enforcers of party discipline:

I respect President Bush. I think he is a good man. I also think his amnesty proposal threatens the future of my country and therefore I disagree with his proposal. I will not vote for any politician supporting such an amnesty proposal.

I can do this in America, right?

[Lurker]

You sure can.

I intend to do the same.

L

[negril]

Why do I have to tread very carefully when questioning President's Bush's amnesty proposal, but he can insinuate that because I oppose amnesty I am a racist?

Isn't the respect for policy differences supposed to flow both ways? Or is only the leader entitled to respect while his disappointed followers should shut the hell up and not dare question the leader.

[Quantumnonlocal]

President Bush is basically a decent man but not a careful thinker on illegal immigration, free speech and much else. In the recent Mohammed cartoon controversy he initially sided with Muslim radicals and stated that he found the cartoons appalling. Only massive outrage from both the left and right over the right of free speech caused the president to tepidly back the Danes. On illegal immigration he has stuck to a single, narrow issue which is that Republicans need to cater to illegals and win their votes. The broader issues such as loss of soverignty in border states, massive population growth with its negative impact on the environment, etc are simply not addressed. Most likely the president lacks the intellectual nimbleness to defend a secure borders policy against the immense opposition that generates from our mainstream cultural leaders so to avoid public embarrasment he simply caves in to the loudest voices among his opponents. Sad to say that although I supported this president in two elections it may be time to think about impeaching him for his deliberate failure to uphold the law on our borders. President Bush should get credit for his initial tough stance against Islamic imperialism but even here he needs a more flexible strategy such as massive support for the Iranian democratic opposition in order to get the mullahs toppled from power. This would do more to rid the world of Islamic imperialism than virtually any other strategy. VP Cheney as president would have the intellectual ability and moral courage to defend a secure borders policy and would likely be a much more effective president in other areas too.

[Kimberly GG]

Bush: Massive Deportation Not Realistic
AP - 50 minutes ago

IRVINE, Calif. - President Bush, rebutting lawmakers advocating a law-and-order approach to immigration, said Monday that those who are calling for massive deportation of the estimated 11 million foreigners living illegally in the United States are not being realistic. "Massive deportation of the people here is not going to work," Bush said as a Congress divided over immigration returned from a two-week recess. "It's just not going to work."

Looks like he's got his mind made up. I'm sure the illegals will be pleased. This is the first time I have butt heads with POTUS. I am furious over the situation. May 1st is going to be very telling. Just heard that Teamsters are supporting and will not cross lines! Unions are looking for DUE$, Democrats are looking for VOTES. Anyone care to guess how many leftist leaders will make MAYDAY speeches in support of the illegals?

What I can't figure out is how do those of us who disagree with Bush, do so, and still find a way to win this November? Is it too late? I'm concerned that if Bush is impeached our soldiers will be forced to surrender. Advice?

[Paul Ross]

I think Teddy Roosevelt had a similar problem: an effective foreign policy pres, but hopelessly anti-business.

Not true.

T.R. was against monopoly. Against restraint of trade...internally. Against foreign dependency. So as to promote more opportunity...internally. He was a nationalist. I suspect you are one of those who are unsympathetic to Roosevelt because he openly called a spade a spade...such as J.P. Morgan:

In 1902, Roosevelt went after Northern Securities, a railroad trust controlled by J.P. Morgan, labeling the financier and those like him, "malefactors of great wealth."

This site sums up Theodore's business positions well.

Although sometimes portrayed as anti business and as a "trust buster," in fact Roosevelt was neither. Roosevelt did believe, however, that there was a public interest higher than any private interest, including the wealthiest. The square deal program, thus, while calling for business regulations did so in the spirit of creating greater cooperation between government and business, and business and labor, on behalf of what Roosevelt thought was the larger common good. In this vein, privately and politically, but not publicly, Roosevelt advocated the federal incorporation of large firms. With this device, never enacted, large firms would approve their charters not from the states but from the national government. A national agency, such as the Bureau of Corporations, thus would have the ability to ensure that private investment decisions occurred within the framework of the public interest.

Theodore Roosevelt was hardly anti-business...as this account of his relationship with JP Morgan by Jean Strouse shows...but he was a man who believed in law...for all...high and low, describing our government as:

"a republic such as ours can exist only by virtue of the orderly limit which comes through the equal domination of the law over all men alike…as shall teach all that no man is above it and no man below it."

He was a true patriot.

[Kimberly GG]

Yes, and I agree. However, is there a way to do it without loosing in November, Bush getting impeached, and our soldiers being FORCED TO SURRENDER?

Is it possible that it is NO coincidence that we are in this position, between a rock and a hard place, divided in an election year? We've been 'living' with the immigration problem for how many years? Did it HAVE to get thrown into the mix NOW? Why not last year, two years ago? Am I missing something?

[LS]

Nope. The man never ran a business, never met a payroll, and had no idea how business worked. He punished the achievers, just because they were successful. If he were alive today, he'd be a Dem. There are several studies, too, of his antitrust policies and they all conclude that they ended up punishing SMALL business more than the big business he hoped to target. That's what happens when you've never employed anyone or had to show a profit.

[AZ_Cowboy]

This is exactly where I'm at as well. You can certainly still do that here in America, although doing it here is a rather delicate proposition.

[AZ_Cowboy]

It's been brewing for quite a while in the border states. The trouble is that all those protesters hopping around have taken it to the national level, and it will surely cause a backlash.

[Paul Ross]

The man never ran a business,

False. Roosevelt first went to the badlands in September 1883 on a hunting trip. While there he became interested in the cattle business and invested in the Maltese Cross Ranch. He returned the next year and established the Elkhorn Ranch, which he ran.

....never met a payroll...,

False. Theodore Roosevelt spent a total of about three years in the West as a ranchman, from 1883 to 1886. During this time he experienced the adventures and lifestyle of the frontier firsthand. Theodore now became the robust, healthy individual for which he had strived all of his life. His energy and enthusiasm again made up for any lack of knowledge he had as a "greenhorn". He experienced forty hour days in the saddle, cattle stampedes at night, roundups, month-long hunts, rides on the lonely prairies, and even the capturing of an outlaw band. And he had a number of ranchhands under his employ for both these ranches.

...and had no idea how business worked.

False. I assume by this you mean he was opposed to capital? Wrong. He himself was a major investor. As one example, he invested heavily in Putnam & Sons, and profited handsomely.

Or maybe that he was an air-head about labor relations? Wrong again.

Theodore Roosevelt was, as he himself claimed, a friend of the working man. All the same, he did not accept labor’s view of the world uncritically, and he expected of organized labor and of the individual working man the same things that he expected from everyone else (including himself): honest dealings, hard work, fair play and a sense of patriotism, or at least adherence to American ideals (as he defined them.) In other words he did not automatically side with or against labor in the many disputes that characterized that era, but it can fairly be said that he did more for working class people than any president before him had ever done, and, given the changes that took place in later years, as much as almost anyone who succeeded him, with the exception of his cousin, FDR.

TR was simply not an extremist Ayn Rand style Libertarian as we see so often erupt out of Wall Street or some brokerage somewhere damning Main Street Republicans and Conservatives as luddites or worse:

It is essential that the nation and the State should be able to forbid the exercise of that kind of pseudo-liberty which means the abridgment of real liberty. There has been a steady growth in these matters, and views which a century ago the courts accepted as almost axiomatic are now upset in decision after decision. The Supreme Court of the United States on January 3 last stated the case as regards liberty of contract as follows: "There is no such thing as absolute freedom of contract. The power of government extends to the denial of liberty of contract to the extent of forbidding or regulating every contract which is reasonably calculated to injuriously affect the public interest."