Posted on 05/11/2006 11:27:54 AM PDT by Sharks
The next time you see somebody running for Senator ask them how it feels being nothing more than another member of the House of Representatives, 'cause with the passing of the 17th that's all they are!
"send 14 Republicans and 12 Democrats to the other side of the Capitol to negotiate a compromise"
Of the 26, there are only 6 who are against amnesty. It is a joke.
Just wait until these Republicans are in the minority. The MSM won't be running to them to hear what they have to say anymore. This suicide pack is starting to resemble Jonestown. Maybe in 2008 after the war is lost a new batch of Republicans with spines can be recruited who will win back the majority on principle, not perks.
Get 'em out/finish the fence!
What they'll do is put both amnesty and border enforcement in the bill, TALK about the border enforcement, but only FUND the amnesty part.
Again, I think you are mistaken.
The majority of illegals are employed in industries such as hospitality, food and construction. It would be reasonable to go after those employers first. I think there is not a whole lot of sympathy for any of them these days, but certainly there is not for the big business employers.
If you leave the illegals here, and I think that the number is probably close to twenty million, they will have rights to bring in at least one or more of their relatives and attrition will not happen because they do not contracept and abort themselves out of existence as do Americans and Europeans.
"Why not? There should be a disincentive for illegal activity.'
Why not?
Because it's wrong.
Because it's excessive.
Bref: because I don't like it and won't support going that far. I guess that's it in the end. There are limits to which I am willing to go, but no farther. I don't think that the illegal activities of illegal workers doing otherwise legal jobs is sufficiently bad to warrant what I think is stealing from them.
Can't go that far.
I can support a fence and stanching the flow.
I can't support taking money earned from manual labor and telling people they can't send it to their families. It's too much.
It's just wrong. It's excessive. It's disproportional. I guess I believe too much in private property and the value of labor to be willing to go that far.
I admit it's a discincentive, but then, so would public torture and maiming, and I can't go there either.
The fence and stepped up enforcement of illegal entry, with enforcement against illegals within the country who come to light should be enough over time. I'm willing to go there, but not farther. It's a compromise position.
"No I don't believe in mob rule. I don't believe in pure democracy."
Well, I'm not talking about either mob rule or pure democracy, but representative democracy.
Specifically, I've been talking about who controls Congress.
We're in an election year, at that is the time that even our Founding Fathers agreed that we got to vote. And when we vote, even they didn't think that we were limited in what we choose. So, it's an election year, and the border issue is in full flaming cry. And THAT'S what people are going to vote (or, especially, not vote) on.
It's not pure democracy to say to a party: IF you don't do what I want, I will NOT vote for you. And if the other side wins, well, so be it.
That's where we are with the BorderBots. They want a closed border, as quickly as possible, and it's an election year. Even our Founding Fathers did not envision a process whereby our political officeholders got to escape from the public will during election years. A republican form of government may not be a pure democracy, but certainly there is NO limit in it, even as originally conceived, that prevents PRECISELY what is currently happening: IF you do not hold a certain position, I will NOt vote for you, and you will lose and the other side will win.
The BorderBots are not talking about a referendum. What has the GOP panicked is that the BorderBots are talking about simply staying home and letting the Democrats win. That is PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE under the Constitution of 1787, as originally drafted. The People are not DIRECTLY voting for a rule. Rather, they are saying that they will not support a particular party that does not do a certain thing. Perfectly legitimate, and perfectly a "republican form of government" under the Constitution as the Founders envisioned it. They didn't envision a sham Constitution which was simply a PRETENCE of voting in the public will, while a political elite did whatever the Hell it wanted without control from the electorate. Rather, they envisioned periodic democratic election of representatives, with the represenatives governing.
They did NOT envision that representatives would be completely unaccountable to the People for what they did while in office. They did not envision that the People had to forget their record and blindly vote every two years. No. They provided two year elections, during which the People COULD express themselves, and remove a recalcitrant political party from power if it didn't do what they want.
And that's precisely what we're facing with the BorderBots and the Republican Party right now. This is EMINENTLY within the scope of what the Founders intended. They didn't intend a sham Republic and a sham vote, but a real, periodic vote. The chickens have come home to roost for the Republicans on the border issue. This is a year of vote, and those office holders are exposed to the voting public THIS year, when the elections happen. That's not an unenvisioned circumstance.
The BorderBots are an important enough portion of the Republican electorate that the election will be lost without them. Therefore, the Republican politicians are faced by the Constitutionally-imposed reality of the two year election, and are accountable to the People THIS year for what they do. This is not some sort of strange innovation. It's why the Federalists lost in the election of 1800 and the Democratic-Republicans and Jefferson won: the people DO get to vote, periodically, for their representatives, and were always INTENDED to. Our Constitution does not establish a SHAM republic, but a REAL democratic republic.
People don't vote too often, and they don't vote on everything, but when they DO vote, it was NEVER envisioned, not even by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, that if they were offended at the ruling party for whatever reason, they couldn't replace them abruptly in an election year.
And that's where we are, this year, with the border.
This IS the Constitution of 1787, as envisioned by the Founders, in full function. If Congress doesn't give the people what they want during the two year election cycle, they are replaced. That's not radical, it was the original intent of the document.
You seem to go further, and suggest that there is ultimately NO democratic check on Congress, that the Founders were so suspicious of democracy that they erected a SHAM republic, where the ruling politicians could ALWAYS act in what they thought was the national best interest, without EVER being overridden and removed from power by an offended people. But that's NOT the actual Constitution.
Immigration is intentionally being brought to a head DURING the 1787-envisioned 2-year Congressional election cycle. It is fully within the Founders intent that, if the Congress displeases the people (by not erecting a border fence), that the People have the right to democratically remove their elected representatives during the election cycle.
And that's what's going to happen if the Republicans in the Congress don't cave, now.
If Frist throws in $100 gift to each illegal than it'd be just perfect.
And the American people got nothing they wanted.
I appreciate your well articulated response. i have no quarrel with your position.
We would not be in this situation if Congress had followed what Reagan compromised on in 1986, and what Congress and Reagan promised the American people then.
What is being proposed now is an amnesty or carrot without a stick which was crucial to the 1986 IRCA-employer sanctions. If employer sanctions were enforced, and benefits were taken away from illegals and anchor babies were eliminated, 98% of our problems would stop and go away. Why our leaders won't take that path amazes me. Is our country already so corrupt that the elites can blatantly go against the will of WE the People who lend them our trust to govern in our best interests, and not theirs? Have we come so far from our founding to let this happen? Will it happen?
Time will tell, and history will not be kind to many people, and will exonerate others..I guess we will have to wait and see if our history is written in English or Spanish to see who the heroes and villains will be...
May God Bless America and its leaders and grant them the wisdom (and courage) to save this once great Nation from further agony and disintigration.
In 50,000 words or less, please tell how you feel about the immigration isssue. LOL!
"In 50,000 words or less, please tell how you feel about the immigration isssue. LOL!"
Oh, ok, if you really insist...
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