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,

[nathanbedford]

General Nathan Bedford Forrest has achieved a kind of immortality in his ability to get under the skin of the ignorant and those suffering from myopia.

Our friend Wolfstar might ponder the blemishes on the record of Thomas Jefferson, some of which I outlined for him. He might consider whether Winston Churchill deserves opprobrium to the degree that heaps upon General Forrest because Churchill sent the infamous Black and Tan's into Ireland. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, jailed dissidents, and otherwise ran roughshod over the Constitution. Should his name or likeness be banned from free Republic? Or do his other achievements justify our regard for him?

Wolfstarr might also think about the fact that it was Forrest who took steps to disband the klan and who, by all accounts, died a man broken to his sins, repentant in his attitude toward slavery, and reconciled with his African-American neighbors.

More likely, though, our friend will soldier on, glorying in his ignorance, resolute in his determination not to deal with the substance of any issue.

[MissAmericanPie]

"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 has not been a grand tradition, any more than we are a nation of immigrants. I am not an immigrant, my family got here in 1743. At some point during some generation a person becomes a native of a land. I'm tired of hearing this cheap "We are all immigrants" crap.

There is a heck of a lot more here now than the dang deer and the antelope, besides material wealth, there is the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence, and it was built, fought, bled, and died for, and preserved, on the backs and the blood of native born Americans.

Now just because every third worlder on the planet wants to partake of what they didn't build, welfare, wic, SS, free medical treatment, just because they want the chance to vote their bellies, doesn't mean they should get it.

This is the home of Native Americans, it is OUR home, we fought for it, bled for it, suffered for it, and when called on, died for it, we built it, we own it, and we have a right to say when enough is enough without some twit telling us to be respectful, and it is our "duty" to be generous, while our dress is being pulled over our heads in a dark alley.

[JoeGar]

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

The President can't understand that a guest-worker program won't work without shutting down the borders first. Close the borders; then, do a guest-worker program.

[MissAmericanPie]

He understands all too well.

[muawiyah]

1743 is pretty late you know.

[hgro]

I don't know who is giving our "Dear" leader advice but how wrong can a person be from any standpoint when you condone lawbreakers and then announce a policy that invites a deluge from Mexico of wetbacks instead of a flood.

It is beyond comprehension that President Bush would think he is right on this issue. In addition, it brings into doubt the rest of his past and current policies in the struggle we are in with the assassins flooding the world from Islamic countrys.

[Designer]

"Leaders also represent the people who elected them."

That's a nice theory, but in reality, their loyalty belongs to the people who paid the money to get them elected.

The voters are merely election-day fodder.

[Designer]

"What are you people drinking there???"

They are drinking deeply from the fountain of power and influence.

It is very addictive, by the way.

[Designer]

"I also believed..Bush would..modify his position.

I was wrong.

Thank You!

Many were wrong, but only one has admitted it.

[Moonman62]

Talking to a skeptical audience, Bush said the heated rhetoric surrounding immigration must be cooled.

That's how liberals talk. They always complain about the nature of the debate when they are trying to force some type of garbage on us. The problem is the law isn't being enforced, not the debate.

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."

No GWB, we are a nation of laws. We welcome people who come into this country legally, and we don't reward those who break the law.

[MissAmericanPie]

At some point a citizen, and their following generations become a native population. I won't get into my other side of my families history here, suffice to say they are Cherokee.

[Wolfstar]

More likely, though, our friend will soldier on, glorying in his ignorance, resolute in his determination not to deal with the substance of any issue.

So, Nathan, bringing in the reinforcements, I see. I did not see muawiyah's post to which you replied and pinged me. Since you did involve me in his response to you, I'll quote from it:

...and even if you despise the man, he was a He|| of a soldier...

So was Benedit Arnold, but like all human beings, he is judged not by one part of his life, but by the sum of all parts of it.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was the founder of the Ku Klux Klan, if not the worst, then certainly one of the worst terrorist-type organizations the North American continent has ever seen. No matter what he did in other parts of his life, that part of his life remains as an indelible stain. No attempt on your part to justify Forrest will ever erase that stain.

The fact he is your hero, NB, tells the world something about you. It was YOUR choice of screen name, NB, yours alone. If people judge you by it, it's because you invited them to do so.

You can whine all you want about my supposedly not addressing the substance of "any" issue. However, what you miss, even though I told you otherwise, is that by remarking on your choice of screen names on a thread about illegal immigration, I AM addressing the issue squarely.

You called me ignorant. Hmmmm...if your intellect is so superior, I must assume you know exactly what my point is, and you're deliberately trying to obscure it by changing the subject.

[muawiyah]

Some of them are actually pretty recent too ~ as that sort of thing goes.

[NathanR]

Nathan Bedford Forrest was once one of my heroes also. However, that was before I realized that he was one of the founders of the KKK. He was the founder of modern cavalry tactics, and I was much impressed. However being a founder of the KKK pretty much negated that, in my opinion. Even knowing that he later tried to distance himself from the KKK, only helped a little.

Nathan, I think that anyone with your name should stay out of immigration threads, and threads that the KKK might have a position on. This is especially true when you insist on an icon/avatar of your namesake. Even when you have good points, your name alone will inflame opinions against you.

[muawiyah]

Hey, one of my cousins destroyed the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana (through his quite successful prosecution of the Grand Kleagle there, D.C.Stephenson.

Stephenson was the smarmy tail end of the Klan ~ and good riddance to them.

Forrest made a mistake. Of course, before the Civil War he bought and sold human beings so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that he thought it more important that blacks be controlled than that they be free.

Still, his career path and later success in field operations speak well of his fundamental capabilities. I think it's too bad he never realized that he was a better man than he let himself be.

He should have gotten right with God. Apparantly he didn't.

[Wolfstar]

Nathan, I think that anyone with your name should stay out of immigration threads, and threads that the KKK might have a position on. This is especially true when you insist on an icon/avatar of your namesake. Even when you have good points, your name alone will inflame opinions against you.

Thank you, NathanR. Yours is a very well-stated encapsulation of the point I was making.

[NathanR]

Thank you.

[nathanbedford]

Nathan, I recall that you and I have had an agreeable exchange in the past and, although I cannot remember the context, I know that we were in accord on some matter. I have read your suggestion with care and have given it fair consideration because I know it was rendered respectfully and thoughtfully, unlike the insulting and thoughtless comments of Wolfstar, whose ramblings are so internally inconsistent and so alarmingly in violation of plain English meaning that they make no sense and are worthy only of display as horrible examples.

But I must respectfully and reluctantly disagree with your suggestion. It might be more cheerful for everyone if those whose comments might give offense, (not out of what was actually said but because of the personal identity of the utterer), were to refrain from posting. Then the sensibilities of those so easily provoked would be spared. Life would certainly be sunnier.

But such is the slippery slope. And I, for one, will not venture down it.

Censorship, like leprosy and syphilis, courses through the body, ravaging it while seeking an opportunistic moment to erupt upon the body as an ugly lesion. It matters not if the censorship is "soft" rather than jackbooted because ultimately the effect upon the body politic is equally ugly. Censorship murders truth. It matters not whether the censor is polite or the manner of its application is subtle, the end result is ultimately murderous to a process which looks for truth within the free exchange of ideas. To suggest that someone ought not to publish his opinion, not because of the contents of the opinion, but because of who he is (or rather what someone else quite mistakenly presumes he is) is a censorship even more to be feared than mere censorship of the material itself. This is censorship of the person! This is the very sort of shameful act which was engaged in by a white berobed night riders. This is why censorship is so damned dangerous: It makes a Klansman of a Wolfstar- the very object of his self righteous contempt. Like slavery, censorship degrades and perverts the master as well as the servant.

More dangerous because it kills discourse because of the messenger rather than his message, this kind of censorship has other characteristics which make it worse than garden variety censorship, if that were possible: It is utterly dependent on the subjective sensibilities of anyone professing to be distressed. In short order we would be utterly without standards of any kind whatsoever. We have seen the baleful consequences of establishing the moving target of the victim's subjective feelings in sexual harassment laws. It matters not whether the gesture or remark or joke was intrinsically offensive it matters only that the alleged victim thinks it was. This is not a standard, this is an invitation to legal extortion. And what sort of person has standing to force his subjective feelings upon all of us? The likes of Wolfstar- a man who, by his own admission, utterly refuses to learn the facts of the life of the man he cites as a reason to censor as he declares them to be irrelevant. Worse, despite all the explicit evidence to the contrary, Wolfstar persists in post after post to conflate me with a pen name and avatar. I have made it clear that there is much about Forests life which I do not approve much less admire. But so long as Wolfstar can continue to deny this reality, he can conflate me with Forrest. As long as he does, he would hold the censor's red pen.

Finally, to submit to this sort of censorship would be to invite it. Once a Philistine like Wolfstar learns that he can rule these boards merely by conjuring up some suitably politically correct contrivance, he will start to swoon like a character from a Jane Austen novel.

I for one will not pander to someone who simply, flatly, declines to deal with the issues in the original post or with the issues concerning his alleged distress over Nathan Bedford Forrest. In refusing to pander to the likes of Wolfstar, I am rendering you a service and every other FReeper too.

[Wolfstar]

...unlike the insulting and thoughtless comments of Wolfstar, whose ramblings are so internally inconsistent and so alarmingly in violation of plain English meaning that they make no sense and are worthy only of display as horrible examples.

Finally, to submit to this sort of censorship would be to invite it. Once a Philistine like Wolfstar learns that he can rule these boards merely by conjuring up some suitably politically correct contrivance, he will start to swoon like a character from a Jane Austen novel.

In refusing to pander to the likes of Wolfstar, I am rendering you a service and every other FReeper too.

Oh, please. Your faux antebellum Southern manners are silly.

If you think anything I said to you is an insult, you don't know what an insult is.

Let's get down to basics, beginning with the fact that I'm not a "he." In my long participation on FR have I never even remotely suggested I should, could, or would want to "control these boards." Say what you will. Just be prepared for others to express equally strong opinions to the contrary.

I did not call for you to refrain from posting on this or any thread. Not once. I merely pointed out a truth, as I have done one other time in the past when encountering you for the first time. You call clear attention to something about yourself through your unusual level of admiration for the founder of the KKK, that it makes your comments about anything to do with racial and ethic tensions suspect.

Once again, the fact that the founder of the KKK is a hero of yours is something you choose to advertise about yourself. You shouldn't, therefore, be surprised when someone comes along and calls you on it. Resorting to whining about "insults" merely reinforces the impression your hero worship of Forrest suggests.

Lastly, this comment of yours is particularly funny: "I for one will not pander to someone who simply, flatly, declines to deal with the issues in the original post or with the issues concerning his alleged distress over Nathan Bedford Forrest."

I have dealt with the issues -- issue in this particular case. You simply either refuse to or are incapable of recognizing that fact. So let me be as blunt as I possibly can:

In your first post on this thread (#8), you wrote some things with which I can agree and some with which I cannot. However, your concluding paragraph contained this statement: "We did not need, and we do not need now, new laws to choke off this noxious inflow." It was followed, as is your custom, by your iconic image of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Say whatever you will to and about me, but "noxious inflow" and Nathan Bedford Forrest are a volatile mix. At least for me, it negated anything else you might have to say on the subject of immigration, legal and illegal.

That was the issue I chose to focus on. Nope, I'm not playing on your turf, but focusing on something that matters to me. Too bad.

[GOP Poet]

Ping