A Day Of Thanks (Not Moaning & Whining)

Today conservatives and Americans across this nation, especially those who voted for George W Bush, should be thankful for what we have accomplished and for having George Bush as President. My tolerance for the whiners who don’t get all they want, or who say the pace of getting America to become more responsive to conservative ideas is too slow, is totally used up. Tonight, when George Bush speaks his is going to discuss how we can take SOME steps towards getting a handle on immigration and the security threats it represents.

I want to give thanks to W for taking the war to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and for not shrinking from his course when the French and Germans bawked, when the UN whimpered, when the left wailed and when the right ran away.

I want to thank him for reducing taxes and pulling this economy together since my family just about went under due to the economic hits from 9-11, and now I am working a dream job exploring the solar system.

I want to thank W for protecting the lives of some of the embryos who otherwise would have become a product to harvest for spare cells (to make spare parts).

I want to thank W for making the education system accountable and force it to produce statistics on its performance.

Thanks also for giving my 80+year old parents a prescription drug plan so they can live out their lives with dignity and in the best health preventive medicine can offer. I know that at their age to fix things once their broken is much harder than keeping them from breaking in the first place.

Thank you as well to the immigrants who come here and extend the American fabric and re-establish respect for the family and the work ethic. I still believe working without papers is aking to driving a car which is not properly registered. While not legal, it pales next to the people I deal with everyday in my 75 mile commute on the busy and dangerous DC Beltway. For perspective, I do not thank all the drivers chatting on the phone, reading, eating, doing their face who risk my LIFE with their casualness. I am less concerned about the immigrant workers coming to do top notch work on my house than the insane drivers who could kill me or my family. Let’s not even discuss how little thanks I have for drunk drivers (and drunk is only a few drinks away).

I want to thank LJSTrata for putting up with me for so long and keeping this site going through its first Blogoversart (5/18/06).

I owe a big thanks to Powerline this week for naming us Blog of the Week - which is an extreme honor we will cherish.

I do not have any words of thanks to he those who leak national secrets to the media because they cannot address their issues through our established political processes. None. Anomous leaks are not a badge of honor.

I have no words of thanks to those who are so frustrated they have turned on Bush when he needs our support, and threaten to sit out elections. Why would I have any thanks for that kind of action? I am thankful we avoided a President Gore and President Kerry. Gore would have lost his mind after 9-11 (look at how he handled the 2000 election). And Kerry would have been so confused about what to do he would have signed legislation beforing vetoing it.

I am thankful for our new allies in Iraq, Afgahnistan, the UAE, Qatar and Pakistan. They are not perfect allies, but they are better than enemies. Just like Bush is 100 fold better than a manic Gore or a confused Kerry. I thank Bush for doing all he did, and doing it despite the naysayers and quitters, the moaners and whiners, and especially the serial surrenderers. Thanks George Bush. And no thanks goes to anyone who gives us nothing on immigration because they could not get all they wanted. I am tired of the zero sum game. It is a game for fools.

Thank you for posting that, I keep trying to make the point to those who don't live on the border that they just can't know what is really going on here unless they live here. I try my darndest to make reasoned posts and keep my temper, but I totally understand where all the anger and frustration comes from. I feel the same anger and frustration, I just may have more self control than some. I do have many of the same feelings though. Much of the anger is caused by those who don't live here thinking they know more about the situation than we do. I get angry when I read posts by a real know it all type and then go to their home page and find out they are miles and miles from the border. I had one the other day tell me she knew exactly what was going on- she said she is a days drive from the border. I am 7 miles away and yet she thinks she knows more than I do- tends to tick me off.

I do not live in one of the hot spots and yet I have all the same stories you do. The same things are happening all along the border, the only diffence is in the hot spots it happens more often. I talk to relatives away from the border and most of them have never been personally touched by crime, even those that live in a large city; yet on the border it is rare if someone hasn't been a victim of crime committed by illegals.

I don't understand why many of those who don't live on the border will not try to understand what we are telling them. Why they can't understand why we think, and feel the way we do. This border is a war zone and it will take drastic action to fix.

I liked parts of the speech last night- but I am very much against rewarding those who came here illegally in any way. I think it is a bad idea.

President Bush's speech left me with more questions than answers. I hope to hear some detail about the plan in the coming days, maybe my questions and concerns will be addressed.

So you would fail to learn from Reagan's mistakes with amnesty?

I don't follow you here? (I said we should not completely ignore the current 12 million illegals here - Meaning as GWB said last night, these people need to be put in a process in which they either willingly become U.S. citizens, via a number of requirements, after criminal back ground checks etc....or they need to leave).

Additionally GWB is not proposing amnesty at all in the sense of how R. Reagan did. In 1985 one minute you were illegal and the next minute you were legal (with no requirements, back ground checks, etc, whatsoever). That is not at all what GWB is suggesting.

It does, however, keep it from getting much larger - which is exactly what will happen if we have any guest worker or amnesty legislation before border security is drastically improved. And that is the entire point.

I simply don't see why you are suggesting you can't have one with the other - The both most certainly can be accomplished within the same process ...and we most certainly do need an updated temporary workers program (with ID cards for all non-U.S. citizens....never for U.S. citizens mind you).

Your train of thought runs exactly with how DEMs constantly try and suggest we can't afford tax cuts. Because we can't do both at the same time (tax cuts and reduce the deficits...when we most certainly can do both).

Here is the poll you're discussing. It shows that Free Republic users' opinion is that if the President and the GOP-controlled Congress do not act "immediately" to "seal the borders, penalize employers who hire illegals, and deport illegal when caught" that they, overall, 60% will NOT vote for Republicans. That number drops to 55% of members who will not vote for Republicans in November unless those things happen.

Free Republic Opinion Poll: If the White House and GOP controlled congress does not act immediately to seal the borders, penalize employers who hire illegals and deport illegals when caught, how will it affect your vote in November?

Composite Opinion
I will continue to vote GOP	40.3%	4,795
I will vote third party	31.8%	3,783
I will stay home	21.3%	2,534
I will vote for the Democrat	6.5%	775
	99.9%	11,887

Member Opinion
I will continue to vote GOP	45.9%	2,019
I will vote third party	31.3%	1,380
I will stay home	20.1%	885
I will vote for the Democrat	2.7%	119
	100.0%	4,403

Non-Member Opinion
I will continue to vote GOP	37.1%	2,776
I will vote third party	32.1%	2,403
I will stay home	22.0%	1,649
I will vote for the Democrat	8.8%	656
	100.0%	7,484

That is a different poll (an older poll) then the latest one which showed 70% would not sit out and allow DEMs to be elected....but would simply fight harder to get more conservatives in Gov't -

This is the newer poll I was speaking of -

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/poll?poll=147;results=1

Furthermore (if silly polls seem to matter so much to some) a new CNN poll from last night shows a whopping 67% viewing the President speech as positive and the right direction (a poll with 2 to 1 margin of GOP'ers to boot).

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/16/immigration/index.html

Yes yes I know deport them...who are they, where are they, how do we find they?

Enforce the laws, force employers to obey the laws by actually enforcing the laws and punishing law-breaking employers as prescribed in the law, and you will see most employers realize that the risks of employing illegal labor are not worth it. The jobs will dry up and the illegal aliens will have no choice but to return home after a few more street marches, temper tantrums, and a riot or two. No, we won't get all 12 million to deport themselves, but we can take a huge bite out of that number. Then we can deal with the rest through raids and stings and various investigations.

The FedGov has been delinquent in getting the instant employment check system in place. It is years late. Already, by law, an employer must review documents from employees which prove that they are legal citizens who can be employed. The trouble is that those documents can be easily forged and employers the victims of fraud or intentionally obtaining false documents just so that they can employ the cheap, exploitable labor. The instant check system will allow employers to check the immigration status of all employees quickly and will nearly eliminate the document fraud problems. A biometric, tamper proof card for foreign laborers is also a good idea. I do not support a National ID card as I want to avoid that if we can. But, given the massive problems and even deaths caused by illegal aliens in this country, we may have to eventually go to that to help eliminate the problem. We already have a defacto national ID system which is managed through the Social Security Administration so it won't be a huge leap. But it isn't a leap that I am anxious to make.

I'm just sick that people think abandoning the party will help anything. There's not a democrat alive who will do anything about this issue.

I agree with that. But it isn't as if they want to abandon the party. They feel that the party has abandoned them along with all reason, logic, a principle. This is a symptom of the fact that the Republican Party unfortunately has come unmoored and is adrift at the moment. If it had stuck to its core principles at a national level, we wouldn't be having this problem right now. Don't blame the disenfranchised - they are more distressed than you are over their abandonment by the party. And it isn't just the immigration issue that has done this. I've been working my tail off for years to keep the party on its principles and to elect party leadership that will stick to those principles. But, at a national level, it isn't working. We need a sea change within the party leadership and this may be it as it becomes evident that their direction has been the wrong one and is destroying the party.

So I do agree that people need to support the GOP House members this election as well as conservative Senators. But in turn, the folks on FR and elsewhere who are yelling at the dissidents on Bush's immigration plans need to instead yell at the Bush Admin for not getting the message. The solidity of the GOP is at stake, and they are driving a wedge into it with each passing failure to listen to what the base is saying.

Well said. I'm not only going to vote for a Republican for Congress in my district, but I'm helping his campaign as a volunteer in substantial ways that I'm not going to discuss here. In fact, I'm upset by what President Bush is doing because it may hurt my candidate's chances as so many conservatives may stay home out of sheer frustration.

I do deny vehemently that *I* want a wall. However, the purpose is not identical, your mischaracterization to the contrary. That's my fear--that it WILL become identical. So we're not so different on conclusions, just on the reasons for those conclusions. In post# 168 I thought I made that clear.

I hardly think that arresting and deporting illegals is quite the same as the image produced by "mass roundups and deportations". You differ.

But you do me a disservice by saying I am dishonest about that. You may not understand the reasoning or agree with it, but the ad hominem is uncalled for. After all, I was courteous to you and never thought, implied, or said that I thought you were dishonest in your use of language. I just thought the words were imprecisely chosen.

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