President gets tepid welcome on GOP turf -- Immigration policies vigorously opposed

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 4/25/6 | Carla Marinucci

[SmithL]

Irvine -- President Bush, aiming to shore up sagging support in a Republican bastion, came for a heart-to-heart talk on immigration Monday, acknowledging that some were puzzled by his choice of Orange County -- the heart of an area opposed to his immigration policies.

"That's what a leader does," Bush told a crowd of 450 business leaders at the Hyatt Regency Irvine as he roamed the room with a microphone during an hourlong town hall-style meeting.

The president, before a phalanx of signs decorated with flags and eagles proclaiming "Securing the American Dream," emphasized securing the borders, dealing with the nation's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants and passing immigration reform in Congress.

Talking to a skeptical audience, Bush said the heated rhetoric surrounding immigration must be cooled. Conduct the debate, he said, "in a respectful way that recognizes we are a nation of immigrants, that we have had a grand tradition in this country of welcoming people into our society."

"It's an emotional debate, but one thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings," he said. "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work."

But even as he spoke, the breadth of the president's political problems on immigration was evident in Orange County -- a longtime GOP stronghold that is being transformed by a vast influx of immigrant laborers, mostly from Mexico. From Republican-dominated Newport Beach to Democratic-leaning Santa Ana, interviews found few supporters for Bush's positions.

The president's conservative base is angry with his support for a guest-worker program,

[Betis70]

bookmark

[citizen]

In this brave new world people are assets or liabilities and they are to be given lip service only. What is best for them will be decided for them.

It is governments run by businessmen that will set foreign and domestic policy, direct the spending of government money,and control every aspect of our daily lives.

Things might be better if we all lived in "The Matrix", that's pretty much how the American Middle-Class is thought of by the power-elite, we're just "economic batteries."

[NRA2BFree]

Judging from the looks on the faces of some of the people at that meeting, they were, indeed VERY unhappy with Bush. There was one guy who NEVER cracked a smile. He just sat there scowling at Bush.

[Wolfstar]

Would you grant me the space to admire parts of the legacy of General Nathan Bedford Forrest?

It's not up to me to "grant" you anything. However, in observing your admiration for the founder of the KKK, I would also recall something many of us scorned during the Clinton era -- the concept of "compartmentalization."

[Uncle Hal]

The ultra liberal Chronicle always bashes the GOP and Bush any chance they can. They love to divide and conquer and talk up (wishfully) the demise of the Republicans.

[nathanbedford]

I would expect nothing less than that rant from someone who so deeply admires the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

This is how it all started a few posts ago with your unsolicited observation that identifies my posts as a "rant" and presumes without any evidence, apart from the nom de plume and the avatar that I "deeply admire" the founder of the Ku Klux Klan.

So I responded in a way that should have been clear to you that there were some parts of Forest's life that I admire and others which I do not.

What most men of reason would describe as an enlightened selectivity and felicity of judgment, you derogate as "compartmentalization."

What all readers of this thread will observe is that you have yet to utter a single syllable addressed to the substance of my original remarks.

[hosepipe]

[ "It's an emotional debate, but one thing we cannot lose sight of is that we're talking about human beings, decent human beings," he said. "Massive deportation of the people here is unrealistic. It's just not going to work." ]

Propaganda!... pure and simple..
Either Dubya has bought the propaganda OR he is the source..

He(Bush) evidently don't know what ILLEGAL MEANS.. Sandy Burgular would agree.. Poor old Sandy didn't perform some illegality his crime was merely an oversight(hand slapped by the White House).. as old Mary McCarthy did.. The boy is really, "A Unite'er not a Divide'er"..

Ah! BUT what is he Uniting with?.. thats is the question..
Wonder if the Dixie Mafia has threatened Laura and the girls?.. because he seems to operating as tool of the democrat party.. Only ONE thing Bush and the democrats agree on... a WIDE OPEN Mexican Border.. The importation of multi millions of propective democrats and a few RINOS serve WHICH party?..

Is the republican party bewitched?..
Evidently so.. even here a FR.. the bewitching has (some) eyes rolling in their sockets..

[Wolfstar]

What all readers of this thread will observe is that you have yet to utter a single syllable addressed to the substance of my original remarks.

Quite to the contrary, I commented on the substance of your remarks by observing how you characterize yourself.

As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. [Proverbs 23:7].

[nathanbedford]

...these sources of a doctrine, news item, or any other statement carried more weight than the content of it; the feeling about the source preceded and determined the true believers reaction." In other words, Dennis, Foster and the founders did not credit the overwhelming evidence of Stalin's crimes until an authoritative Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, ruled that they were crimes. (p. 39)

I had read this in a book entitled "In Denial" by Haynes and Klehr, I wonder, if this description applies to you as well as it does to communist apologists? Those apologists resorted to the ad hominem where, in The Soviet Union, it killed people. Here, it merely confounds the high purpose of FreeRepublic because it substitutes appeal to political orthodoxy for persuasion and logic.

When you use language in ways that are utterly incongruent with its plain meaning, as you have here:

Quite to the contrary, I commented on the substance of your remarks by observing how you characterize yourself

you reveal yourself to be worse than a klansman because you wear a verbal mask to conceal your character assination while professing the white robes of political correctness. Sir, you have not addressed the substance. You may quote the Bible out of context just as Soviet murderers quoted Marx, but it does not change the plain meaning of the english language.

Will you at last address the substance of the post?

[Wolfstar]

you reveal yourself to be worse than a klansman because you wear a verbal mask to conceal your character assination while professing the white robes of political correctness.

I've made myself quite plain. You're hero is the founder of the KKK. All your pseudo-lofty, and may I say quite pompous, rhetoric notwithstanding, that is something YOU want the world to know about you. If there is any character "assassination" being done, it is you doing it to yourself.

Will you at last address the substance of the post?

Nope, I won't play your game. Why? Unlike any other human interaction, the internet allows us to show others who we are unencumbered by visual clues that, in the physical world, often create barriers between people. I can't get past the most prominent thing you want people in this virtual world to know about you, which is that your hero is the founder of the KKK. As far as I'm concerned, that negates anything else you may have to say about any subject.

BTW, this is not the first time I've engaged in a dialogue with you along these lines.

[A CA Guy]

The President needs to:

Build a wall.

Register with thumb prints and pictures all people working here in any program and all those deported.

You hold employer's liable to verify the legality of their employee by verifying them in a national data base with their ID and data base picture.

Any employer hiring someone with no temporary permits gets fined and eventually jailed.

If employers want the benefit of employing people, they ought to be help responsible to verify who they are with an available national background check.

The wall would force people to only flow through at check points for the most parts and any one in tunnels or flying over in planes would be prosecuted.

The main reason nobody wants to get serious in the government regarding immigration and Mexico is that they fear sending their people home will cause a revolution at home because their country is such a hell hole.
In a revolution or revolt, there is the fear communism, Russia, China or others could come to control or have great influence in Mexico. That would be the problem and issue.

We can't afford to pay 14k a year to educate each of their children. New laws should define required education for illegals to satisfy the Constitution as being a separate school (A tent) with one teacher and 10,000 kids.
Teach basic math and English and that is it.
Make it only cost us $400 a year to educate them. Getting them out of the classroom will also give those that belong there a better change to succeed and to not be held back to try and catch illegals up.

Constitutional change that gives no birth certificate to illegals.

The other side of the coin is the government wants all the Mexicans hoping to increase the worker base as people get older and need to pay for old people's SS.
Being they come from next door, they will almost never have loyalty to America though.

[muawiyah]

We have a bunch of 'em around here. Not a one of them is on welfare, nor do they get free housing.

The usual trick is for 20 to 30 young men to rent a 3 bedroom, 1 story house, and bunk in together on shifts.

If you'll take a good look, you'll find it's that way around your neighborhood too.

[muawiyah]

We had a guy running for Governor in Virginia last year who made illegal aliens his major campaign theme.

He lost to a Corporatist Democrat.

You'd better believe the rest of the politicians paid attention to that one.

[muawiyah]

Hey, guarantee that when it comes to "true life experiences" Nathan Bedford Forrest was a mind-numbed, knee-jerk, robot-like Liberal compared to Muawiyah, the founder of the Ummayad Dynasty.

We all pick our pen names for a number of reasons ~ in Muawiyah's case, he was a Dark Ages fellow who did a couple of things that proved he was as close to a Jeffersonian as you were liable to find "way back when".

Folks get upset about Forrest simply because he is so recent ~ and even if you despise the man, he was a He|| of a soldier, and rose through the ranks from Private to General ~ commendable in all armies in all of history.

[muawiyah]

It's really not criticism to suggest that we can deport these criminals one at a time and thereby avoid anything smacking of massive deportations.

[muawiyah]

Depends on the immigrant group ~ San Fran's Italians have traditionally been Republican while those in New Jersey have been Democrat.

There are, of course, exceptions to thoe general rules ~

The Germans, and the English, tend to be both Democrats and Republicans.

[mississippi red-neck]

Good analogy.

[mississippi red-neck]

I guess my big problem is not so much with him saying we can't deport that many people it is that as head of the Executive Branch he is choosing to ignore his Constitutional duty and violating his oath of office by refusing to enforce existing law.

He has made no attempt to stop the illegal invasion of our country that is placing our citizens lives and property in danger.

He is not enforcing the law of our country simply because he doesn't agree with it.

Actually it is worse because he is selectively enforcing it by letting certain ones violate it while arresting and imprisoning others for breaking it.

If he really wanted to he could seal the borders in a matter of a few days.

It bothers me a great deal when the President ,one man, decides he is above the law and refuses to do what the law and his position and oath require him to do simply because it doesn't personally want to.

We are close to losing control of our country.

Our leaders are getting to the point where like Hamas they don't even bother to try to hide the fact that they don't care what the laws says or what millions of their citizens want or say.

They simply do what they want to and hope we forget. It doesn't really matter to them the law is for us not them.

If they get kick out, so what, they're in the rich privileged class and it ain't going to hurt them or cost them anything.

As long as they and their rich friends get what they wanted it doesn't matter,they don't mix or have to face common people. They just go back to their ivy towers.

We the unwashed should just shut up and be grateful we got such as them to take care of and decide what best for us./s

[tabsternager]

Some very good points you make.

[SUSSA]

Thanks