Who was he listening to?
His Republican base and the majority of Americans have stated their preference for increased border security. Fine, he's finally listened and appears to have moved a ways in that direction.
Who else was he listening to?
Well, we had millions of marxist-organized illegal aliens marching in our streets since March 25th, culminating with their nation wide temper tantrum on May Day. They were demanding the right to work, amnesty, and citizenship. And the President has said that is what he wants to give them.
Why is he listening to illegal aliens? These are foreign nationals who are criminals, who have violated our sovereign borders, who do untold amounts of economic damage to our towns, states, and nation, who are responsible for over 9,000 American deaths per year, who are responsible for sexually abusing 3,000 American children per year. But they are who the President is listening to when he sets half of his immigration reform and border security plan to provide them legal work, a way to avoid the legal penalty (deportation) for their crime of being here illegally (ie. amnesty), and a path to citizenship. That is what the illegal aliens demand and that is what the President is working to give them.
You say that the President said that he was the President of all Americans, not just Republicans and those who voted for him. Now, besides the fact that the Democrats never try to be the President or representatives of "all" Americans and fight only for their side while Republicans tend to try to be the President or representatives of "all" Americans (even liberals, leftists, and Democrats) and tend to give far too much ground to the other side, I have an issue with the President being the President of the foreign nationals who are making demands. He is not the President of the illegal aliens and their demands do not deserve to be considered - at all - by the President. Yet there he is capitulating to those demands.
Now, when someone points this out or are otherwise critical of the President's plan - as long as they do it somewhat rationally and respectfully - they are not a "troll" here, nor are they advocating throwing everything to the Democrats. These people have a legitimate complaint that does not deserve to be derided and they don't deserve to be called names and told to shut up.
The President has actually come a LONG way from his original position on immigration reform and border security. He needs to be given credit for that. He's still got a ways to go until his proposal is acceptable and will not serve to damage the country, but he's made a lot of progress from even a year ago. I have to credit those who have been critical of the President's position and also credit the Minuteman Project for so deftly calling national attention to the problems at the border. Just like the Harriet Meiers episode, the President has proven that he can be forced to listen to his base. He's got some more listening to do, however, but I have to recognize how far he's actually come on this issue. There's still work for us to do though.
Trying to affect political change of a conservative nature is what this site is all about. The criticism of the President, as long as it is somewhat respectful, is healthy and should be welcome here. We may be able to nudge him and the Senate far enough that they'll put together and adopt an acceptable plan. Or we may be able to defeat the current unacceptable plan because, at this point, no bill at all is better than the bill being debated in the Senate.
We could all tone it down a bit. The bitter rancor here has been a bit high lately. Passions are running high on this issue, but we're all grown ups I think and we should be capable of a little more self control. It isn't constructive to accuse someone of racism or intolerance just because they want the border secured and our laws enforced. It also isn't helpful to call the President a traitor or call for his impeachment. We FReepers agree on 90% of political issues as we all tend to be conservatives. We should act like it. Yes, even on the immigration reform/border security issue. We could all do a lot more "turning the other cheek" here, applying the Golden Rule, and remembering that holding a grudge against someone or deciding to hate them is like taking poison and then expecting that someone to die from it. And, yes, I can stand to take some of my own medicine on this.
And that's just my two cents.
Importing tens of millions people from the Third World, legally, added to the millions more who will still come illegally with a sieve for a border will destroy this nation's identity.
I don't care if the GOP is behind it. It is fatal to this country's future.
That's the sad part, that he has to be forced to do things that should come natural to a conservative (whose party happens to have control of all three branches). We shouldn't have to be wasting our energy fighting him. We should be able to be fighting along side him against the Democrats.
And that's just my two cents.
Nice post, Spiff.