Posted on 05/31/2006 7:29:02 AM PDT by ZGuy
What is going on with Republicans in Congress? They've largely abandoned many traditional conservative principles -- smaller government, belief in the free market and protection of individual, not group, rights.
Instead of acting as good stewards of the people's money, Republican members have taken the art of "earmarking" funds for their pet projects to heights that should make big-spending Democrats blush. They've become so obsessed by immigration, many have adopted the centrally planned economic models of radical population-control advocates.
And now some Republicans are about to engineer the reconquista of Hawaii. There is much talk among some Republican members of Congress of late that Mexicans are trying to reconquer the American Southwest, but the real irredentist threat seems to be coming from Hawaiians, not Mexicans, with the help of a lot of Republican politicians. Instead of being the party of principle, Republicans are in danger of becoming the party of hypocrisy.
The latest travesty comes in the form of a bill to grant "Native Hawaiians" status as a sovereign government within the United States. Half of the co-sponsors of the legislation are Republicans: Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Gordon Smith, Norm Coleman, Ted Stevens and Lindsey Graham. And so many Republicans are supporting the bill that opponents may not be able to sustain a filibuster when it comes up for a Senate vote next week.
The bill creates a new racial category -- so-called Native Hawaiians -- that will be defined as a "tribe" for purposes of self-government. Anyone who is one of the "indigenous, native people of Hawaii" and who is a "direct, lineal descendant of the aboriginal, indigenous, native people" who resided in the Hawaiian Islands on or before Jan. 1, 1893, and "exercised sovereignty" in the same region will be given special autonomous rights, including the right to "negotiate" with the federal government over lands and natural resources.
In order to qualify for membership in the group there will be strictly a racial test -- "tribal" members wouldn't even have to live in Hawaii. And never mind the obvious nonsense that the indigenous peoples of the Hawaiian Islands ever exercised "sovereignty." The only sovereign of the Hawaiian peoples in 1893 was Queen Liliuokalani, but that won't stop some 400,000 people claiming special privileges under this bill.
The legislation is a marked departure from the government's treatment of legitimate Indian tribes, which must produce evidence to show that they have been in continuous existence since 1900 and have kinship and marriage, as well as cultural or religious, patterns that are distinctive. Indian tribes must also prove that their membership is based on historical tribes that have functioned as a political entity in the past -- none of which will be required for Native Hawaiians.
The recent debate over immigration has raised important questions about national identity, but conservative Republicans are no better than their Democrat colleagues in tackling this issue head-on. Republicans -- including illegal alien foe and Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner -- back bilingual ballots, for example.
When I testified at Judiciary Committee hearings against providing bilingual ballots, I felt a little like the skunk at the tea party. And Republicans have been almost as bad as Democrats in including racial preferences for supposedly underrepresented minorities in federal legislation, even voting again to include such preferences in legislation that had been the subject of a successful Supreme Court challenge in the 1995 Adarand v. Pena case.
What we need now is not more racial categories and special privileges, but fewer, especially in light of the changing demographics of the country. Instead of pushing legislation to create a whole new victim-group -- Native Hawaiians -- Republicans ought to get back to color-blind principles and a commitment to the melting pot.
But principles don't seem to matter to some members of Congress nearly as much as interest groups pushing an agenda. At this rate, it's hard to figure out what some Republicans really stand for anymore. Aside from support for aggressively challenging our enemies abroad, the GOP doesn't bear much resemblance to the party of Ronald Reagan on much of anything these days.
Mrs. Chavez is president of Stop Union Political Abuse.
God's judgment. He's abandoned them to their own stupidity and lust for power.
Hawaii was my first experience in being a victim of racial prejudice.
What's wrong with Linda?
when will they open the casinos?
I've been convinced for some time
that our Congressmen, and particularly
our Senators, DO NOT READ THE BILLS
they support or vote for. They leave
that cumbersome task to their aides,
whose average age may attain the ripe
old age of 20. IMO, the elected officials
ASSUME that these kids, for the most part
college students used to combing through
reams of paper work and siphoning off the
key points, are qualified to abridge
the info and present the Congressman
with a valid synopsis of the material.
Some of these bills and amendments to
the bills, attain a girth of 70-80 pages.
Then all he has to do is weigh the positives
and the negatives and cast his vote.
Admittedly, some Congressmen take an
even easier route: they simply
rely on their cronies to TELL them
the pros and cons of a specific bill.
And we all know where that leads...
you vote for MY issue, I'll vote for
YOURS! And the integrity of the
Congress suffers.
These have not been Conservative principles since 1965. Conservatives have been most vocal in supporting larger government, governmental authority over individuals, protectionism for certain favored industries, preemptive wars, etc. (So have Liberals, but with differing targets.)
Because the so called "moderates" of the RNC, which is really to say "liberals" in a nicer way, are taking the party over. Conservatives are without a party now in my opinion. Bush is certainly no conservative. He has few conservative principals. His spending, lack of border controls or concerns, his move to make these illegals, legal, for votes, etc., fails the test.
I like Linda, but as I recall she was withdrawn as a nominee for a Bush administration position because it turned out she had hired illegals to work in her home. That may explain the amnesty thing.
The principle is "Divide and Conquer". As this is said more and more by the MSM and liberals we are reacting to it instead of responding to it.
We are eating our own in a feeding frenzy of identifying everyone that doesn't agree with our personal values as a RINO. We have lost sight of the evils that await us if we implode. We must not lose sight of the future of our country. It would be grim in the hands of "the progressive thinkers".
We definitely have things to fix and we should use the backroom to administer the whoopin' not the main stage the MSM is providing.
Linda asks what's wrong with Republicans yet she's all for the Bush/Senate Shamnesty program.
What's wrong with Linda?
**
You took the words right out of my mouth!
She has lost all credibilty, IMO.
Indeed.
The party I voted for in 1994 has become the party I voted against.
Well said. Damned well said.
Become "housebroken".
Power corrupts. Once in power, these folks started learning *why* their predecessors used their power to buy votes.
It's the nature of teh sytstem.
Yup.
coming partly from a "my ox got gored" position?
What ARE you talking about? Don't you know that if a person is white - it's never discrimination ;o)
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