Posted on 06/02/2007 5:31:20 AM PDT by oldtimer2
Time to Split the Blanket
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Saturday, June 2, 2007
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."
So said Jefferson. It would appear to be time again for a little rebellion in the Grand Old Party -- this time against George II.
For President Bush has attacked his own loyalists for a lack of patriotism. "If you don't want to do what's right for America," he said of opponents of the Bush-Kennedy immigration bill, "if you want to scare the American people, what you say is the bill's an amnesty bill. That's empty political rhetoric, trying to frighten our citizens."
But if the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens are instantly legalized, what other term is there to describe that than amnesty?
Not only are opponents not doing "what's right for America," their courage is in question: "People in Congress need the courage to go back to their districts and explain exactly what this bill is all about. The fundamental question is, will elected officials have the courage necessary to put a comprehensive immigration plan in place."
Where, one wonders, was "Bush's Brain," Karl Rove?
For, worse than a crime, this attack on his base was a blunder. The people Bush is savaging -- columnists, commentators, talk-show hosts, congressmen fighting his bill -- have been the front-line troops in his fight to sustain funding for the war.
And if there were any doubt whom Bush had in mind, his surrogate, Linda Chavez, cleared it up:
"Some people just don't like Mexicans -- or anyone else from south of the border. They think Latinos are freeloaders and welfare cheats who are too lazy to learn English. They think Latinos have too many babies and that Latino kids will dumb down our schools. They think Latinos are dirty, diseased, indolent and more prone to criminal behavior. They think Latinos are just too different from us ever to become real Americans. ...
"Unfortunately, among this group is a fair number of Republican members of Congress, almost all influential conservative talk radio hosts, some cable news anchors -- most prominently, Lou Dobbs -- and a handful of public policy 'experts' at organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, NumbersUSA, in addition to fringe groups like the Minuteman Project."
Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan cites other attacks by Bush surrogates on the conservative base: "Sen. Lindsey Graham has said, 'We're gonna tell the bigots to shut up.' ... Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff suggested opponents would prefer illegal immigrants be killed; Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said those who oppose the bill want 'mass deportation.' Former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson said those who oppose the bill are 'anti-immigrant' and suggested they suffer from 'rage' and 'national chauvinism.'
"Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens? And often, though not exclusively, concerned conservatives?" asks Noonan.
Because, Peggy, down deep where they live, they don't like the right, never did and have always sought to be seen by the Big Media as the progressive children of a dysfunctional and retarded family.
Bush's attack on the motives and character of conservatives tell us it is Goldwater-Rockefeller time again -- time to split the blanket. Conservatives need to declare their independence of Bush and to repudiate Bushism as the philosophy of their movement and party.
While Bush's court appointments, setting aside the Harriet Miers mess, have been superb, while his tax cuts have been Reaganite, while his stand on traditional values is courageous, beyond is a vast wasteland as far as the eye can see.
His free-trade zealotry has led to five straight record trade deficits. While America's economy is now growing at under 1 percent, China's is booming at 10 percent. His refusal to defend and secure the borders is well-nigh impeachable. His compromises with Teddy Kennedy on No Child Left Behind have doubled the size of the Department of Education without any appreciable gain in test scores. His "Big Government Conservatism" marks him as his father's son, not Reagan's heir. In Ward Connerly's courageous battle against reverse discrimination, the Bushes have all been on the other side.
His bungled war of choice on Iraq has left us with 3,400 dead, 25,000 wounded, hundreds of billions deeper in debt and an Army on the point of breaking. Relations with Europe, Russia, and the Arab and Muslim world are worse than they were when he took office.
His clandestine drive to merge Mexico, America and Canada in a "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" -- a North American Union modeled on the European Union -- entails the loss of sovereignty and end of the republic as we know it.
The damage Bush has done to his party is beginning to rival that of Herbert Hoover. If the Clintons were doing this, would conservatives be mute? Time to lock and load.
Pat Buchanan is a founding editor of The American Conservative magazine, and the author of many books including State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America .
Pat was ahead of the curve on this issue.
Sort of like electing left wing Democrats to Congress and the White House? Remember that Nazi is a contraction of the German for National Socialists.
Linda Chavez’s words are disgraceful. She should apologize. She is as bad as (or worse than?) Don Imus. Her words should be repudiated by President Bush, Tony Snow, or someone else close to the President.
Remembering of course that the crime in question is misdemeanor. Unlike the "crime" of having a loaded functional gun in DC, or failing to fill out the *federal* paperwork correctly, which IIRC are felonies.
“The German nation . . . brought all its suffering upon itself . . .”
I don’t think the Germans were responsible for the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand - the Serbs were. The Germans supported their allies in WWI, the Austrians, in trying to hold the Serbs accountable. As a current day example, if a Iranian hit team assassinated the heir to the British throne, Prince Harry, and Britain attacked Iran in response, would we not also support our ally, Britain against Iran?
The base instinctively sees that, even if that vision is presently inchoate, there is a moral as well as an intellectual repugnancy between Bush's policies in Iraq and on the border.
Contrary to the pervasive belief among leftists around the world, America does not seek to wage war where its vital interests are not at stake. The gravamen of the justification for the war in Iraq was to prevent Saddam Hussein from trading petrodollars for weapons of mass destruction which he could then turn upon us or pass off to terrorists groups who would in turn inflict them on us on a scale more ghastly than 9/11. Why fight and die in the barrios of Baghdad to protect America from WMDs when it took only 19 terrorists to bring down the World Trade Towers? Are there not 19 more terrorists in the world ready to smuggle a couple of nukes across the Mexican border? Have we in any sense made ourselves safer in this regard? Most thinking people would conclude that we have not. They would conclude, there cannot be any risk or surely we would have closed our own borders!
If there is a risk, Bush has been stunningly irresponsible in failing adequately to police the borders. So egregious is his misfeasance that the government admits to 12 million illegals on the loose some where in our midst! The number is more likely 20 million. Whatever the number, how can one have confidence in a Commander in Chief properly to wage war in Iraq when he has been so demonstrably inept at home?
If there is no risk, why are we fighting and dying in Iraq?
Our military force in Iraq is made up mainly, although not exclusively, by the sons of the lower middle class. While these boys sacrifice their lives or their limbs in Falluja, their economic prospects are daily diminished by a swelling tide of illegal immigrants taking their jobs and compromising their prospects, including their hopes for a college education. While they suffer unnecessarily because our government cannot treat them adequately in places like Walter Reade, illegal immigrants are succored cost free by a virtually every hospital in our land. Preoccupied with worry about their wives at home trying to feed the kids with food stamps, our soldiers learn that illegal immigrants are given every advantage of our social net. Eventually, our troops, their mothers, and their wives must be asking themselves, who are we fighting for?
A nation's sovereignty is utterly dependent on the integrity of its borders. One of the tests of international law is the ability of a nation which makes claim to being a nationstate to control its own borders. No borders, no country. George Bush has placed us in an anomalous position in which we are fighting and dying to create sovereignty for Iraq while we are indifferent to the erosion of our own.
A military worthy of the name is a culture based on a code. The code is comprised of honor and the rule of law. These things when adhered to yield pride and courage. So important is the sense of the rule of law to the military, that it has its own code of military Justice. We are learning that elections alone in Iraq are not enough to establish a viable and stable democracy, there must be a rule of law. The United States of America is undertaking simply to forget about the rule of law as it applies to 12 million or more criminals within its borders. When will the soldiers ask, "how can we simply turn on and off the rule of law?" Most of the illegal immigrants come from the land of the mordida where bribery is institutionalized as part of the very tradition of life. If you are stopped by a policeman in Mexico, he may be wearing a uniform, but he is eager to accept a bribe. This is not a culture of the rule of law, it is a culture which is repugnant to the code of the military. It is utterly contrary to the very image we are trying to establish for the police in Iraq. How soon before our military ask, "are we not the biggest of hypocrites?"
Our reserve and guard forces are liable to call up and to extension of service commitment and to multiple assignments in the Iraqi theater of war. They volunteered for these risks. But how long will it be before they ask themselves, "why must I returned to Iraq for the third time and spend many months away from my family and risk the loss of my life or my limb, when 12 million criminals in America are simply given the fruits of everything I am fighting for just because they broke the law? Why are they not compelled to serve?"
These repugnancies will eventually wreck support for Bush's war. He has only himself to blame.
Don’t worry, the speckled Bushbot is a species on the verge of extinction. George Bush himself is killing them off, one by one.
Ninth paragrapg: Some Americans don’t like Mexicans, etc.
I don’t
I don’t like any of the those from south of the border. For all the reasons listed here and many, many more.
The final straw for moving from my (almost paid off) home in So Calif was because of the ever-greater numbers of illegals swarming the corners and the parking lots. I no longer felt safe, and I couldn’t carry a weapon with enough ammo to get them all at one time without re-loading. Tooooo many of them.
When I am forced to put bars on my windows: Am I protecting my property or am I making myself a prisoner????
That's a keeper.
Your original?
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