"A HOUSE DIVIDED" - Pukin's FReeperversary Rant

It is getting somewhat strange around these parts when not only the President, but yesterday the First Lady was personally attacked by someone claiming to be a ‘Conservative’. Can there be any doubt that there are forces among us looking to drive a wedge between us?

A few weeks ago, this forum’s owner attempted to remind all of us of the big picture, that regardless of any personal animosity towards the President or Republican Party over their adherence to Conservative principles, that they are still a clear choice over the alternative Democrat Party rule. At that time, I assumed that FReeper-sanity had been restored, and that some of the negative rhetoric aimed at those in Washington D.C. would be dialed back.

Free Republic is a political forum with a proud history and vision, responsible for dragging Dan Rather from his post, and providing countless radio-talk shows with their daily talking points. FReepers are unique in their determination and energy towards protecting and defending the goals of our Founding Fathers.

We are also quite a powder keg of emotion and anticipation, expecting our Republican majorities to take advantage of this opportunity to make permanent gains in our Conservative agenda. Some might argue that this opportunity has been squandered, but those persons would be ignorant of history, lacking understanding that change cannot occur overnight in Washington, and that this is the way our Founders designed our Republic.

In frustration, impatience, and ignorance, we have allowed this forum to become a haven for those who do not share our Conservative goals. I do not blame our enemies anymore then I would blame a scorpion for stinging me. If anger and stupidity were one’s nature, I would expect the trolls that infect this forum to be angry and stupid consistently, which also makes them somewhat easy to detect.

The trolls are not the problem, though. The problem is that so many of us are allowing ourselves to be taken in by those who seek only to prevent us from going to the polls in November to keep their stinking hands off our government for another term. There can be no doubt, that no matter how disappointing our current government has been in promoting the Conservative agenda, that the alternative, enabled by our staying home will be MUCH worse.

The way to deal with Republicans who have actively worked against our goals is to defeat them in Primary elections. We do not even have to defeat them all, only enough of them to send the message that we will indeed target them if they work against our agenda. It should be the goal of EVERY conservative to see that Lincoln Chaffee is defeated in November. His seat is one we can afford to lose. Were I a Rhode Island resident, I would vote for the Democrat if only to send a message to Snowe, Hagel, Collins, Graham, and especially that bastard Specter that their primaries just got a lot tougher.

We only need to get one of them, and Chaffee is the one to get. It does not really matter if a Democrat takes his seat; he will be junior and mute as long as we maintain our overall majority in the Senate.

The one thing that bothers me here like nothing else, is the simple disrespect of the President. Am I am Bush-Bot? Damn straight I am. If you want to know why, click on my handle to read Southack’s excellent list of Bush’s accomplishments in office. But if Bush had done almost nothing in office, it would be no excuse for some of the slights and disrespect he has received from some of us on this forum.

Some of the things I have read here this past week match in tone what one can find on our favorite Democrat sewer site. Someone calling himself or herself a FReeper was promoting shooting aliens at the border until they stopped coming. Is that what we are about? Obviously not, and that so-called Conservative has been eliminated from this forum.

I think it is important to remember that you and I have just as much responsibility as George Bush does in changing our culture to better reflect Conservative values. Right now, this very moment, Conservatives have the government they deserve. We put them there. They are not our mommies and daddies sent out to bring home our Conservative bread. That responsibility lies with all of us. These Republicans represent us, they don’t serve us. Our job is to pick the best individual and send him/her to Washington in the hope that their CHARACTER will see them through.

This is why it is such a nutty thing to consider punishing the Republican party, when we should be letting them know that we’ve got their back, but if they cant do the job, we will replace them with ANOTHER Republican, instead of handing the reigns of government to the party of anger, hopelessness and despair. We sometimes like to think that those people we send to Washington are different from us, that they are capable of meeting our every need and desire.

I want every one of you to think about what you would consider to be your perfect mate. Maybe some of you think you have found that person. If you are married and totally in love with another person, that is great. Now I want to ask you to think about the last time that person you love, who is PERFECT for you, completely pissed you off. Remember, this is your perfect mate, your one true love. Do they do everything you want them to do? Obey your every desire? If you answer yes, I am going to put you on my troll list.

Those people in Washington do not even cut your lawn, yet you expect perfection. Get over it.

I am issuing a challenge to every person who considers him or her to be a Conservative; why don’t we all commit to a return to HONOR? Do we honor our Conservative agenda when we comport ourselves in disgraceful ways? Is it an honorable thing to suggest that our President is a moron, as I read here a few days ago? Is it honorable to attack Laura Bush or any other person representing true Conservative values?

Some of you might argue that George Bush is not representing Conservative values to your liking. I would remind you that the first thing Bush said upon taking office, is that he was going to be President of ALL the people, not just some. You know that if you followed Bush from the beginning that he campaigned of the very immigration platform he is defending right now. Did you vote for him? Yeah?

If you have ever had a steak at a Ruth’s Chris restaurant, you know that sometimes they bring that wonderful steak to your table with a sprig of parsley on it. I hate parsley. Hate it. If I were to treat my steak the way some of us want to treat our President, I would have to throw out the steak, due to that nasty parsley that comes with it. I can deal with the parsley to get the steak, and that is what I am asking FReepers to do.

Expecting perfection from any person, group or team is a recipe for disaster. George W. Bush is my president. You can disagree with him, you can blame him for your problems if that is your desire. If you disrespect his office, his service, his risking his life to be with our troops in Iraq, his steadfast desire to bring a new tone to Washington, or if you just like the way he keeps Democrats so pissed off they lose their minds on a regular basis, I ask you to treat him and his wife with respect and cut the personal attacks. If you call him ‘Shrub’ or ‘Jorge’ consider yourself my enemy.

Right now, our real enemy are the Main Stream Media, the Democrat Party, and all who follow and support them. If you want to jump-ugly on someone, why not start with those leaky bastards and give our side a break?

"Amazing how you are so willing to close entire industries rather than hire cheap labor. Your premise is right though, either we react and compete with the rest of the world and it's labor advantages or let our labor intensive industry go overseas. That is the basis of the World Economy whether or not we like it or not.
Why do you care about the mix? If we have all Asians who cares as long as we get the job done. The fact is the Turd world is right across the Rio. Using this labor only makes sense because we are overqualified for most of these jobs.
You also say that Americans are willing to pay more for American workers. Tell that to Ford and GM or walk through your house and see how much say made in China."

All of your points deserve a response.

First, I am not willing to close entire industries, because I believe that relatively cheap American labor, and more efficient management practices, and automation, all three are available to allow industries to maintain themselves in America just fine. I AM unwilling to allow ILLEGALLY cheap labor to exist in America. Our laws set a minimum standard of pay, benefits, rights and protections for everybody working in the United States. I do not believe that employers should have any way to get around those labor minima, certainly not by illegally hiring illegal immigrants. They are making an excess margin of profit from hiring illegal labor. This is illegal profit. I am not willing to allow business to make illegal profits by illegal means in America. I believe that the general protections of American labor are not optional to businesses operating in America.

I also believe that American businesses, if they cannot get dirt cheap illegal labor and maintain profits illegaly, CAN adapt and retool to earn their their profits legally: by hiring unemployed Americans, by automating more, by becoming more efficient.

I will go further. It is IMPOSSIBLE for American labor to compete, dollar for dollar, with foreign slave labor, such as employed in China. American standards of living cannot be maintained on slave labor wages. I do not think that chasing industries out of the country, nor that allowing industries to pay illegal wages in America is the answer. Nor do I think that companies should be given tax deductions for going abroad and putting Americans out of work. The correct solution, in my view, is to enforce the immigration and labor laws of the United States, and modify the tax code to remove tax deductibility for business shipping labor offshore. To the extent necessary, imports from nations with substandard wages and living conditions, with which American labor cannot possibly compete, should have corrective tarriffs imposed on them to balance out the labor cost advantage of slavery and use of peones in dirt poverty gives to manufacturers using such labor.

This differs from protective tarriffs. Protective tarriffs are simply used to protect American manufacturers, and are set to make American products artificially more competitive. The only people who profit from them are manufacturers and businesses, who have no incentive to become more efficient or produce better products.
Equalization tarriffs are fundamentally different. They account for the reality of higher costs of living in the First World versus the cost of peones and slaves. The benefits from a regime that balances out the higher cost of Western labor is immediately felt across the whole economy, because higher employment is maintained. The "World Economy" is not a government. The United States CANNOT export at will into ANY other country. Where the lines are drawn by every country are based on fundamental national interests. It is in the national interest of the United States to maintain its laws and its labor standards. And law is properly used to erect barriers to prevent goods made by foreign slaves from competing with goods made by free Americans. Chinese slaves are cheaper, but we should impose tarriffs on those goods to balance out the cost of labor advantage. No free people can ever compete with slave labor. We are the linchpin of the world economy, and we can indeed enforce our laws, including our labor laws, and we can indeed erect a tax regime that does not allow a race to the bottom of labor protection to triumph.

Why do I care about the mix? Because national security is at stake. Massive Mexican immigration is building a Latino Quebec situation which will end up destroying the political stability and ultimately threaten the territorial integrity of the United States if it is allowed to go unchecked. Immigration is good, but it certainly should be coming in from the whole world, and not be heavily overrepresented by illegal border jumpers from Mexico.

I have no problem with using immigrant labor. If we want to allow a million immigrants into the country a year, from China, Mexico and elsewhere, to do the low-skilled jobs, that's fine. But they have to pay social security, and be entitled to social security benefits when they retire. They have to be resident immigrants with a path to citizenship. They have to be paid at least minimum wage, and be fully protected by the Workmen's Compensation Regime and labor laws. And they have to have the same access to courts to sue employers for abusive labor practice, and to unionize if they want to, as any other American worker. I am willing to allow massive immigration of cheap labor into America, but it has to be legal, and every one of them has to have the full protections and rights of the entirety of American labor law. It is a matter the integrity of the system of law that American business cannot be permitted to operate little islands of Third World labor outside of the reach of the regular laws that apply to every worker in America. There is one law, and it applies to everyone. We can have them here under those conditions. Or we can't have them here at all.

I did not say that Americans are WILLING to pay more for American workers. What I said was that Americans will HAVE to if the tax and tarriff regimes are arranged so as to make it such that Chinese slave labor cannot be used to simply club our manufacturing economy into submission. They have an advantage, yes. Slavery and mass poverty do indeed provide a competitive advantage in terms of cost of labor which the first world can never match economically. But we can use the law to equalize that equation and protect American employment. And we should.

Good Post. Again you are debating the Living Wage argument that everyone around the world deserve a Living Wage as you determine it. That is not the way Capitalism, which is by far the greatest form of Economics works. You earn what the market will bear, nothing more.

Workers are just like businesses in that to enter a market they will take less and work towards higher prices later. So a Mexican takes what he can get until a better job comes along and so forth. Many who have been here for years are making very decent wages compared to where they started. A healthy economy will always need entry level laborers.

Labor intensive industries such as Farming, Landscaping, Saw-milling, etc are high volume low profit industries. You assume that the $1 an hour the owner saves goes into profit when that may not be true. He may have to lower his costs to enter the market or compete with the guy down the street. He does what he has to do to get the job and feed his family. If he raises his price the customer will just go to the next one that does have lower prices.

As for China, they have entered the capitalist society and they have an advantage now but as capitalism takes over their labor will go up just like everywhere else. They are basically trying to go down the path as Japan but Communism will not allow for free and open Capitalism.

Your tariffs idea will only damage the economy as higher costs are passed on to consumers. You are talking about Billions of taxes on millions of consumer goods. You are asking for gummit to control the economy. I believe that is called Communism?

Pray for W and Our Troops

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